Consisting of wooden gourds as resonators which are hit with mallets, the marimba is a member is the percussion family.Much like the xylophone, it has a broader and lower tonal range and resonators while the bars are arranged as those of a piano. These resonators hang below each bar, all with varying lengths, producing vibrations that pas through them, much like the body of a guitar or a cello. The mallets, made of rattan or fibre glass is commonly around 5/16 inches, but this depends of the size of the marimba.