Watch the Route Layla Clark’s Mallets Take Through the ‘Thunderstruck’ Riff
A viewer who watched Layla Clark’s ‘Thunderstruck’ singled out the quick pattern her mallets have to trace. The opening lasts long enough to follow one hand, then the other. Watch how little time either hand spends waiting directly above a bar.
The camera puts that coordination in plain view. On electric guitar, the recognizable figure comes from Angus Young’s attack and the fretting hand’s movement along a string. The Jaguars give the pitches to mallet players, so the distances between strikes are spread across the instrument.
To do that arpeggio pattern with mallets on a xylophone is no joke. Amazing!!🤘
Listen for the recurring pitch that gives the phrase a place to return. The notes around it change, but that return makes the riff easy to recognize. Watching one mallet at a time gives you a better look at how Clark keeps finding those points even when the other hand is moving away.
Some commenters call the instrument a xylophone. CBS Pittsburgh identifies the instrument Clark plays in the clip as a marimba. The wooden bars give the notes a clear attack, and the metal resonators beneath them help carry the sound.
Clark told CBS Pittsburgh the passage took a long time to learn. The recording lets you see a small part of what that work involved. A strike has to sound cleanly, the mallet has to clear the bar, and the hand has to arrive at its next position before the listener notices any change in tempo.
The next time the rest of the Jaguars enter, keep your eyes on the front ensemble. Once you know what the hands are doing, it is easier to hear the opening figure as part of the larger arrangement.
