The Flippin Stick Bag

No, I'm not swearing about my stick bag. Although trying to use a stick bag to hold mallets on a marimba would be cause for using a few choice words. I'm talking about a stick bag that literally flips when used to hold marimba mallets when mounted on a marimba.
First I need to clear up my definition of a 'mallet bag' as opposed to a 'stick bag'. A 'Mallet bag'  has pockets between 14"&15" deep and fairly narrow, about 4" wide. Both the depth and the width is important to keep the mallets from leaning over and flipping the bag. Even with these dimensions it is still important to have some tie or hook system along the top of the bag to support it vertically.
A 'stick bag' has shorter and wider pockets, 9"-10" and 4"-6" respectively.  Sometimes a stick bag has vertical supports.
Where they are mounted is the actual difference between the 2. The stick bag is usually placed on the floor tom of a drum set, alternatively on a snare drum for concert use. In either case the bag hooks onto the tension rods of the drum forming a semi-circle around the shell which keeps the sticks and mallets flush against the drum keeping it from flopping over. A mallet bag suspended from the rail or posts of the instrument has nothing to support the lower part, therefore it's important that the mallets stay in a much more vertical position. This explains the importance of the pocket dimensions and also the post/rail supports.

Same stick bag, same mallets mounted on a floor tom(left) and xylophone(right)

But what if you already have a 'stick bag' and you want to use it to hold mallets on a keyboard instrument. This is the problem that confronted me when I tried to mount stick bags on a marimba and xylophone for a community band that I perform with. Since the bags we already had were essentially useless as mallet bags I thought about adapting them.

To keep the mallets from leaning out so far I turned the two 6 inch pockets into four 3 inch pockets. Sewing a short vertical seam in each of the 2 pockets turned them into the 4 pockets (at this point I should mention that I enlisted my wife's sewing abilities since mine are less than stellar). This kept the mallets from excessive leaning. The bag still flopped forward from the top heavy mallets so I (she) added a nylon rod (the same rod I used for the Triangle beaters) sewn vertically into the bag. Finally a loop was sewn in the center top with a hook and cord attached. This gave it a third rail/post attachment along with the original 2 side cords.

1. Short seams to divide the pockets.

2. Connecting the nylon (yellow) rod 

to the bag.

3. Loop sewn into the top center        

The finished bag easily holds 4 pairs of mallets and more if I wanted to stuff them in. There is no danger of them falling out and since the rod was sewn into the center of the bag, it can still be closed and zipped for transport.

2 modified 'stick bags' containing 4 pair of mallets. Zipped closed for transport (left) and mounted on a xylophone (right). 

My conclusion:

Do this only if you already have a stick bag and are unable or unwilling to invest in a real mallet bag. The time and effort for this modification in pretty extensive.