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

Bobby McFerrin

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

Audience Instruments Performing
Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Moving Next Notes
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
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
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 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
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 want to write a book of poetry, as well as children’s stories.
BOBBY MCFERRIN

Book Children Writing
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
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

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

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

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