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You keep going forward, fearful or not, living from moment to moment. That’s how life is.

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
Here’s a little song I wrote You might want to sing it note for note Don’t worry, be happy In every life we have some trouble But when you worry you make it double Don’t worry, be happy Don’t worry, be happy now
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Doubt Little 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
Musicians are the architects of heaven.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Architect Heaven Musician
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
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
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
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
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
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Laughing Soul Voice
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
The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Heart Music Science
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
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

Bible Country Morning People Spirit
I couldn’t do anything without faith. I couldn’t open up my eyes, I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t sing.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Eye Speak Walks
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
You keep going forward, fearful or not, living from moment to moment. That’s how life is.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Fearful Forward Keep Life
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
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 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 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
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
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
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
Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Moving Next Notes
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.

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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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Popular Authors

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