Ladies and Gentlemen...Patrick Mallory!

As a young child I was always intrigued and fascinated by music. I was still a baby when my mother found out that the public library was putting on a workshop for babies to play basic instruments. My mother and I arrived at the workshop and we sat in a circle with all the other toddlers. I of course saw that all the instruments were in the middle of the circle and slowly made my way towards them. Unfortunately the lady who organized the program was not impressed and made me sit with my mother while she gave her a piece of her mind. My mother has told me many times that the lady told her that I was going to be a juvenile delinquent if I carried on with these actions. Needless to say I never want back to that workshop nor did I become a juvenile delinquent. I eventually did start playing an instrument which was the cello. Thousands of hours over the years I studied; practices, music camps and recitals.


I was introduced to this first song on one of my favorite mornings; Christmas. As a kid I would get up as early as possible and bounce around in my room waiting for a glimpse of light and then run down my grandparent’s stairs only to realize I was far too early. The next hour or so would be agonizing. On one Christmas, morning my stocking was full with my usual items that I get including a beanie baby, a huge pack of life savers and some other awesome stuff. The difference that year was at the bottom of the stocking were a few CD’s including Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Emerson Lake and Palmer and an artist which was completely new to me.

The unknown artist was David Darling. Mr. Darling was a cellist who (2000) traveled over to Taiwan’ to record with a little tribe called the Bunun. The Bunon are unique as they use “improvised polyphonic singing”. This choral of music requires each singer to harmonize with others around him. In some songs there are as many as fifteen harmonized parts. All the compositions are past down, generation by generation through word of mouth.

I am only going to post two songs as the last one is a little on the long side.

I would like you to go deep inside yourself, relax, and shut out the world around you. I have some fond moments of this last piece for the week. I remember spending numerous hours trying to perfect each and every note. Arvo Part is considered one of the greatest minimalist composers of all time. I feel the same way as most people. He is a genius, he turns the most simple and scale like phrases into their own compositions of merit.. For the next ten minutes I want you to listen to each and every note. Arvo believed that there were no such thing as passing notes and even the silence between them were integral parts of the composition.

I hope you enjoy. Pat