Unconventional sound production on the xylophone

The xylophone’s timbral resources have been little explored. Despite recent efforts to promote the solo xylophone, conventional sound production prevails in most of the compositions reviewed by the authors. The first author contributed to an investigation of the second author, exploring with him sound production on the xylophone through practice-based research oriented to art music creation. Entering each other's domains, the authors ended up arriving at instrumental and compositional gestures almost certainly unheard of in the instrument until then. In the musical work, these are juxtaposed with conventional gestures in a varied and predominantly discontinuous compositional flow, counteracting the tendency in many of the compositions reviewed by the authors.