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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. 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

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Bobby McFerrin
Age: 74
Born: 1950
Born: March 11
Beatboxer
Conductor
Jazz Musician
Recording Artist
Singer
Songwriter
Vocalist
Manhattan borough
New York City
Robert Keith McFerrin Jr.
Robert Keith McFerrin
Jr.
Robert McFerrin
Jr.
Feelings
Joy
Mission
Play
Grows
Missions
Make
Feeling
Sing
Good
Freedom
Adults
Things
Enjoy
Supposed
Time
Everyone
Deserve
Think
Comes
Grow
Heightened
Thinking
Sense
Leave
Concerts

More quotes by Bobby McFerrin

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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.
Bobby McFerrin
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But, if there's any aspect of my career that needs attention, it's writing.
Bobby McFerrin
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I try not to perform. I try to come on stage and be myself, to sing the way I would in a room by myself, to interact with the audience the way I would relate to them if we were in my kitchen drinking tea and making up silly songs. Maybe the way to get past the fear of being ourselves is simply to try it more often.
Bobby McFerrin
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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 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
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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
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To me, it's our job as artists. You must bring joy.
Bobby McFerrin
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If I stand there, appreciating the world around me as full of amazing sounds and the possibility of new ones, I think that invites other people to see the world that way, too. I love sharing the experience of singing with people, and I love sharing my stories. But when it comes to teaching, I have a lot of help.
Bobby McFerrin
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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.
Bobby McFerrin
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Improvisation means coming to the situation without rigid expectations or preconceptions. The key to improvisation is motion — you keep going forward, fearful or not, living from moment to moment. That’s how life is.
Bobby McFerrin
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Well, I started conducting kind of by accident. I wanted to give myself a special birthday present for my fortieth birthday, and I was living in San Francisco at the time and I started attending some of the concerts and then simply dropping hints.
Bobby McFerrin
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I don't want anything to get in the way of me and my singing. I want my mind as clear as possible.
Bobby McFerrin
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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.
Bobby McFerrin
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Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.
Bobby McFerrin
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Sometimes mistakes are the best thing that can happen, because they might lift you...out of your complacency, and open your mind up to a whole other area that you wouldn't have gone to intentionally.
Bobby McFerrin
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Whenever I'm onstage, I try my best not to think that I'm performing. It's simply another part of my day.
Bobby McFerrin
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When I'm on stage by myself, I don't have to think about anything. I don't have to worry about anything because I'm not responsible for anything except just opening my mouth and making sure music comes out.
Bobby McFerrin
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Musicians are the architects of heaven.
Bobby McFerrin
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I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.
Bobby McFerrin
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I did the one concert, and I was not bitten by the conducting bug, and I thought I was done, but then the phone started to ring, and gradually, over time, I started conducting more and more. Now a third of my performances are with orchestras.
Bobby McFerrin
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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. 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