Xylophone Stamps

The xylophone is a common and recognizable instrument. Xylophones have wooden bars (or keys) that each sound a specific pitch. A player uses mallets to hit the bars to create music. The xylophone is closely related to similar instruments that have bars of stone, metal, glass, or other materials.

While the xylophone is now a universal instrument, it is not an instrument that is universally popular. There are very specific places and cultural traditions in which the xylophone is a primary instrument for music making. On the other hand, in many places, the instrument is more of a special effect, or even a children’s toy.

A Musical Migration

The xylophone, like many instruments, was probably spread around the globe through human interaction and migration. Regions that are close to each other tend to trade cultural items, so many instruments in East Asia are similar between China, Korea, and Japan. Instruments in Europe are common between countries, etc. Others moved much farther, often following established trade routes. Many instruments, along with music itself, was passed along the cultures of the Silk Roads between China, Central Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Instruments from European colonizers, as well as enslaved Africans, came to the Americas. Most scholars think that the xylophone had a very different, and probably unique, path.

Southeast Asia to Africa

One theory is that the instrument probably was first popular in southeast Asia more than two thousand years ago. There, one can still find xylophone type instruments in the gamelan orchestras of Indonesia, the kulintang music of the Philippines, and the piphat ensembles of Thailand.

People from southeast Asia travelled great distances by sea. In the last couple of centuries before the common era, people from southeast Asia arrived on the then uninhabited island of Madagascar off the coast of Africa. Of course, these people brought their musical culture, including xylophones, with them. It probably didn’t take long for the instrument to reach the mainland of Africa.

Africa to the Americas

The enslavement and forced migration of Africans to the Americas, brought the instrument, or the idea of it, to the western hemisphere. Xylophone type instruments became especially popular in the cultures of Central America. It is only from these cultures that the instrument spread to the rest of the world, eventually becoming a part of western orchestras, and a part of early childhood education everywhere.

The Xylophone on Stamps

So, what does any of this have to do with postage stamps. As readers of this blog know, musical instruments are actually common subjects on stamps. Instruments celebrate the culture of a country and can either serve to unite a population as a symbol of common identity, or highlight the traditions of an ethnic minority. In general, the instrument on a stamp will always be something that the local population will easily identify and understand.

In the case of the xylophone, it appears on a wide variety of stamps from many different cultures around the world. However, it does not appear everywhere. Stamps with xylophones come from the places where it is a primary part of music making. Primarily, this means southeast Asia and Africa, with a few examples from central America. Although the xylophone appears in western orchestras, I don’t know of any example of a stamp with the instrument from Europe or the United States (there is a single French stamp with a metal-bar glockenspiel, a close relative to the xylophone). Significantly, these xylophone stamps highlight the areas where the instrument is popular, and trace its transmission route.

Southeast Asian Stamps

African Stamps

Central American Stamps