I bought this for my 18 month old daughter to play with supervised. This is meant for an older child. Still, I believe with supervision, it is okay for a younger child to experiment with. This instrument was expensive, but I believe well worth it. The bars are made of metal, which differs from a traditional xylophone, which is usually wood. As a result, the sound is much higher, and very crisp. The bars are colorfully painted and have the note etched on each bar.
The instrument comes with two mallets, which are plastic and have a round ball at the end. They are made from a single piece, so the ball probably will not detach from the stick.
The sounds are wonderfully in tune and carry nicely. They are attached to the support by some rubbery nubs. As such, you can remove the bars by simply pulling them off. My daughter did that the first day she played with it, but now she leaves them on and strikes them with the mallets. The edges of each bar are a little sharp, but not so much that you'd cut yourself. You might get a scratch though.
The entire thing is less than a foot long and at the widest end is no more than 5 inches. The small size allows for storage.
Overall I love this instrument. I am lucky that my husband is musically gifted so he is able to play simple songs on it for my daughter. She really enjoys listening and also trying to play herself. I believe this enhances her musical education greatly.
Update: Since having bought this a while ago, I am updating it to give comments on the paint. My daughter really likes this instrument, but her banging on it with practically anything that's around, has led to the paint chipping off. I have found paint pieces stuck to her hands and luckily removed them before she could have ingested them. The paint is rather glossy. With the many recalls from lead in paint, you can't be too careful. This probably wouldn't happen if she only used the mallets that came with it.
Again, I still like this product, but you have to supervise at all times. I keep all her musical things stored in a covered plastic container, so when she wants to play with them, she lugs over the container and asks me to "open please".
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We have a nice collection of instruments for my kids. I normally am okay with them making noise thinking they are learning about rhythm etc.. BUT this toy is ear peircing. I make them go into a room by themselves and play it. If they can restrain themselves and just lightly hit it the noise is okay. Also, my kids (3 and 5 years) are able to take the metal pieces off.
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We bought this for supervised music time for our 12 month old. I would not recommend for a younger child to play with on their own as the keys are removable and the plastic sticks could be dangerous too. That being said my husband and I love, love, love this glockenspiel! It has crisp, honest sounding notes. It can get loud when hit with force, but what fun is music time if it's quiet.
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I was pleasantly surprised with this purchase. The tone quality is excellent and we can actually teach our son songs. We bought it as an aid to make sure his hearing is okay but really happy it is not tinny and keeps great tone. If you don't want the sound to resonate then you just touch the keys to stop the sound. The base is plastic
which I thought was wood, but still a very good purchase.
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A little on the small side (a foot long or so), but the sound is great. My son (age 3) stopped banging long enough to appreciate the resonant "ring" of each bar. Yes, the bars are removable; he was enjoying this feature and liked putting them back in the right order. Includes a card with just a few songs. My son is learning notes on the staff (and we use the corresponding colors from this instrument) and I can't wait to see him put it all together and play some songs on his own!
