Folk and Ethnic Musical Instruments

While pitched percussion instruments are played like other percussion instruments, ie. by being struck with a stick or mallet, they are capable of producing several definite pitches and can be used to play melodies or parts of melodies. The definition is not exact and includes both members of the membranophones (timpani) and  the idiophones (agogo).

Its largest subfamily is composed by the mallet instruments, also simply called mallets, ie. instruments with a keyboard-like layout like the balafon, the marimba, the xylophone, the glockenspiel and or the vibraphone, that are played with the help of sticks or mallets. According to this definition, the steeldrum or steel pan isn't a "mallet" because it lacks a "keyboardish" layout. World music examples of mallet played instruments with a keyboard-like oder ladder-like layout include, besides the well known balafon, also the gyil from Ghana and Burkina Faso, the timbila from Mozambique, the shilimba from Zambia and the zapotecano from Guatemala and Mexico, the ranat ek lek and the ranat thum lek from Thailand, the roneat dek from Cambodia, the kulintang a tiniok or salunay from the Philippines, the fangxiang from China as well as the  gambang kayu, the ugal, the jegogan, the gender, the slenthem, the gangsa and the saron, all from Indonesian Gamelan music.

Instruments like the mbira (thumb piano) or the marimbula are either regarded as plucked idiophones or a distinct category, the lamellophones.