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 MCFERRINMusic 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.
More Bobby McFerrin Quotes
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I want to write a book of poetry, as well as children’s stories.
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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.
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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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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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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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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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I do a lot of performing, but don’t get a chance to go to the studio and write good music.
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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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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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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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You keep going forward, fearful or not, living from moment to moment. That’s how life is.
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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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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.
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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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Improvisation means coming to the situation without rigid expectations or preconceptions. The key to improvisation is motion.
BOBBY MCFERRIN