Introducing the Capella Outdoor Xylophone

The Capella is brand new colourful 15-note outdoor resonated xylophone.

Available from our range of diatonic outdoor musical instruments, the vibrantly coloured anodised notes deliver a bright rounded sound and are set to our ‘rainbow scale’ encouraging players to reproduce a myriad of familiar tunes as well as being able to improvise and make their own unique music. The note range for this instrument is C-Major G3-G5.

When speaking of music and harmony, you will frequently encounter the term diatonic. The diatonic scales are the basic scales, or natural scales, and they can all be made by playing just the white keys on the piano.

For example, the key C-Major is the white keys on the piano starting with C - the notes are C D E F G A B C. If a melody is said to be diatonic and in the key of C, it will only use those 7 notes within the C-Major scale/key. You’ll notice however that the note range of the Capella is G3-G5, this makes it a mode of the C-Major scale, in fact it is called the Mixoydian mode. Confused? Let me explain.

Modes can be seen as scales derived from the notes of the major scale, but starting at different intervals in that scale. The mixolydian scale starts on the 5th note of the major scale and ends on the fifth note. For instance, we already know the C-Major scale is C, D, E, F, G, A, B, and C. The fifth note of C-Major you’ll notice is G. Therefore the 5th mode of C-Major is G mixolydian: G, A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. It’s the same group of notes only starting and ending on G, the 5th - G to G in C-Major.

The Mixolydian mode is one of the most commonly used scales in music. The word ‘mode’ comes from the Latin for ‘manner, or method’ but musical modes all originated in ancient Greece, so they have Greek names named after various regions.

Each note of the Capella is anodised in a bright colour from the rainbow which can be used with corresponding coloured sheet music for helping teachers and learners of all ages and learning styles.