[suh-les-tuh] 
| a musical instrument consisting principally of a set of graduated steel plates struck with hammers that are activated by a keyboard. |
| ce·les·ta (sə-lěs'tə) n. A musical instrument with a keyboard and metal plates struck by hammers that produce bell-like tones. [French célesta, from céleste, celestial, from Latin caelestis; see celestial.] |
celesta
orchestral percussion instrument resembling a small upright piano, patented by a Parisian, Auguste Mustel, in 1886. It consists of a series of small metal bars (and hence is a metallophone) with a keyboard and a simplified piano action in which small felt hammers strike the bars. Each bar is resonated by a wooden box or similar chamber tuned to reinforce the fundamental harmonic (component tone) of the bar. A pedal lifts a felt-pad damper from the bars, permitting use of either sustained or short notes. The normal range is four octaves upward from middle C
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