black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.

Bobby McFerrin

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

Expectations Keys Mean
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
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
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
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Prayer Singing Spiritual
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
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Crazy Ideas Mind
If I sing “you broke my heart, you left me flat,” everyone knows exactly what that means – they know the story. But if I sing a line that’s plaintive or wailing, people can experience their own set of emotions and their own story.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Heart Mean Song
You keep going forward, fearful or not, living from moment to moment. That’s how life is.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Fearful Forward Keep Life
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
When you worry your face will frown, that will bring everybody down, so don’t worry BE HAPPY!:)
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Face Faces Worry Your
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
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
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Children Life Responsibility
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Deserve More Play Thinking
If I stand there, appreciating the world around me as full of amazing sounds and the possibility of new ones,
BOBBY MCFERRIN

People Teaching Thinking

I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Bobby McFerrin Quotes