When we listen to improvisational jazz, or solo classical violinists, the way they phrase and inflect melodies feels vocal, like they’re talking to us.
BOBBY MCFERRINYou can try a new way of singing a song you’ve performed for years, a new way of showing your family your love for them, or a new recipe.
More Bobby McFerrin Quotes
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I’d actually been making my living as an organist with bands since I was probably 15 or 16 years old, and then as a senior in high school I put together a jazz quintet called The Bobby Mack Jazz Quintet.
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Each of us might give that phrase a different meaning. It’s open to interpretation, and one song becomes a thousand songs. I love that.
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Then I came up with this crazy idea just to walk out on the stage with no band at all and just start singing whatever came to mind.
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Here’s a little song I wrote. You might want to sing it note for note. Don’t worry, be happy.
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I like a very dark house, just black. I sit there and just think. Once I’m still and quiet inside, I’ll begin. It’s very personal; it has to be.
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Remembering that life can be full of surprises is useful in any part of your life.
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This is what I want everyone to experience at the end of my concert… everyone has this sense of rejoicing. I don’t want them to be blown away by what I do,
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I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.
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I want them to have this sense of real, real joy from the depths of their being. Because I think when you take them to that place, then you open up a place where grace can come in.
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If I have a mission it’s to make everyone who comes to my concerts leave feeling a heightened sense of freedom to play, sing, and enjoy themselves.
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You keep going forward, fearful or not, living from moment to moment. That’s how life is.
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I bury my mind in my book, the Bible. Every morning it’s the first thing that I do. I’ve been doing it for years and years.
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I found that if I sang a line using the consonants, vowels, shadings, and inflection we recognize as human language sounds, people responded as if I were talking to them.
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It’s not that I don’t love the song. My songs are like my children: some you want around and some you want to send off to college as soon as possible.
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Don’t just play the licks you know. We’re all improvising all the time – it’s good to recognize that and embrace it.
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Music is so powerful, it needs to be used for some kind of redeeming work. To lift peoples spirits, to lift their souls.
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The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.
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Music is still part of my spiritual life. Sometimes I sing my prayers. When I get audiences singing, I hope I’m helping them feel connected to something beyond themselves.
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You can try a new way of singing a song you’ve performed for years, a new way of showing your family your love for them, or a new recipe.
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I want to write a book of poetry, as well as children’s stories.
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Part of our responsibility as parents, as adults, is to set examples for children. But we have to like children in order to be really happy fulfilled adults
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I think play and joy and feeling good deserve more of our time. I don’t see why adults are supposed to grow out of those things.
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I actually fought the idea for a while because it seemed almost too radical, but it became obvious what I was supposed to be doing.
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If I stand there, appreciating the world around me as full of amazing sounds and the possibility of new ones,
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The voice gets to the soul of a person more than any other instrument. Because it’s the voice. It sings talks, it cries, it laughs, it squeals, it barks, it shouts it whispers, There is no other instrument that can do that. We’re born with it.
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Musicians are the architects of heaven.
BOBBY MCFERRIN