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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

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 use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

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

Audience Instruments Performing
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
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
You keep going forward, fearful or not, living from moment to moment. That’s how life is.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Fearful Forward Keep Life
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
Remembering that life can be full of surprises is useful in any part of your life.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

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

Expectations Keys Mean
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
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
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.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Children College Possible Song
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
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

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.

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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.

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Popular Authors

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