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So I want to come back here [to Israel] to see the places that I read about every day. It’s very important to my faith to feed [my] spirit in Israel.

Bobby McFerrin

Don’t just play the licks you know. We’re all improvising all the time – it’s good to recognize that and embrace it.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Embrace Good Improve Play Recognize
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Recipe Show Singing Try Way
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
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Feel Heightened Psychologist Sing
Music is so powerful, it needs to be used for some kind of redeeming work. To lift peoples spirits, to lift their souls.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Needs Powerful Soul
When I was figuring out how to perform solo, I wanted to move back and forth between bass riffs, melody, and harmony, so I often used sounds instead of — or alongside — the words of a song.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Alongside Figuring Harmony Perform Song
I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Color Music Use
The audience is like my instrument. It’s not just me up there, it’s collaborative.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Audience Instruments Performing
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
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
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Actually Almost Fought Idea Suppose
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
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
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,
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Joy Real Thinking
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
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

So I want to come back here [to Israel] to see the places that I read about every day. It’s very important to my faith to feed [my] spirit in Israel.

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Popular Authors

So I want to come back here [to Israel] to see the places that I read about every day. It’s very important to my faith to feed [my] spirit in Israel.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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