Marimba

marimba: see xylophone.

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marimba

Xylophone with resonators under each bar. The original African instrument uses tuned calabash resonators. In Mexico and Central America, where it was brought by African slaves, the wooden bars may be affixed to a frame supported by legs or hung at the player's waist. The orchestral marimba uses long metal tubes as resonators.

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Marimba

(Marimba, Inc., Palo Alto, CA, www.marimba.com) A software company founded in 1996 by four key members of Sun's original Java development team. In 1996, it introduced Castanet, a family of Java-based delivery systems for publishing and automatically distributing application updates and other published materials via the Internet and intranets. Other Marimba products addressed the key areas of security management, infrastructure management and change and configuration management.

In 2004, BMC Software (www.bmc.com) acquired Marimba and rapidly integrated its products and technologies into its line of business service management (BSM) software.

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marimba

a Latin American percussion instrument consisting of a set of hardwood plates placed over tuned metal resonators, played with two soft-headed sticks in each hand

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Marimba 

(1) A percussion instrument that is common among many peoples of Africa; it is a variety of xylophone. The modern xylophone, which has metal resonating pipes, is also known as a marimba.

(2) A reed instrument that is plucked; found in the Congo and some other localities in the eastern part of Africa. In other regions of Africa it is known as the zanza.