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

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

Expectations Keys Mean
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 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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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’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
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 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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