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I want to write a book of poetry, as well as children’s stories.

Bobby McFerrin

Here’s a little song I wrote. You might want to sing it note for note. Don’t worry, be happy.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Song Want Worry
Improvisation means coming to the situation without rigid expectations or preconceptions. The key to improvisation is motion.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Expectations Keys Mean
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Actually Experience People School Senior Years
One song may be Bach, the next blues, a song from TV, or a nursery rhyme or jazz piece.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Nursery One Piece Rhyme Song Television
You keep going forward, fearful or not, living from moment to moment. That’s how life is.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Fearful Forward Keep Life
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Language Recognize Responded Sound Talking
Miles Davis turned his back to the audience when he came out on stage, and he offended people. But, he wasn’t there to entertain; he was all about the music. I kind of do that.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Host Kind People
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Depths Grace Joy Place Real Sense
The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Heart Music Science
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Back Dark Sit Song Thinking
Remembering that life can be full of surprises is useful in any part of your life.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Play Song Years
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 MCFERRIN

Moving Song Talking
Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Moving Next Notes
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Book Israel Morning
I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Color Music Use
I do a lot of performing, but don’t get a chance to go to the studio and write good music.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Chance Performing Writing

I want to write a book of poetry, as well as children’s stories.

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I want to write a book of poetry, as well as children’s stories.

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Popular Authors

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