glockenspiel
instrumentsGLOK-un-shpeel
A percussion instrument with tuned metal bars played with hard mallets, producing a bright, bell-like tone.
The glockenspiel (German for play of bells) consists of steel bars arranged in two rows like a piano keyboard, mounted in a frame. The player strikes the bars with hard mallets, producing a bright, penetrating, bell-like tone that sounds two octaves higher than written — the glockenspiel is a transposing instrument.
The glockenspiel appears in orchestral music when composers want a sparkling, celestial quality. Mozart used it in The Magic Flute, and Tchaikovsky included it in the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy (alongside the celesta). In marching bands, a portable glockenspiel called a bell lyre is carried upright. The vibraphone is a larger, lower cousin with motor-driven rotating discs that create a vibrato effect.
Mozart called the glockenspiel a set of magic bells in The Magic Flute — Papageno's instrument is specifically a glockenspiel, and it literally charms his enemies into dancing.