Merry Go Round (1988-90)
for solo marimba (six-mallets)

Duration: ca. 2'45"
Instrumentation: marimba (six-mallets)
Premiere: Composer’s Forum, Eastman School of Music, Kilbourn Hall, Rochester, NY, May 27, 1990.
Publisher: Robert Paterson Music (ASCAP)

Full MIDI Audio File [MP3] | Score Excerpt [PDF] | Purchase Music
Introduction to My Six-Mallet Technique | Basic Six Mallet Exercies

Program Notes

Merry Go Round is the first of four projected pieces based on themes relating to children’s experiences. It starts out sounding like the music played on a merry go round at a fair but becomes dizzy toward the end. My inspiration for this piece occurred one day when I was with a girlfriend. I was standing in front of my marimba, fooling around and showing off. To impress her, I grabbed three mallets in each hand and clumsily proceeded to play a simple “oompah-pah” pattern with my left hand while playing a melody with my right. It was the first time I had ever tried to play with six mallets at once, and it all started out as an accident. I was inspired, so I developed that pattern into this playful piece, the first one I ever wrote for marimba played with six mallets.

– Robert Paterson