Quote

I’m not a scholar or a psychologist, so I don’t really think about why. But I do think about what it means to sing to and with people, to offer music to them, and to ask them to spend time with me.

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.
Music
Psychologist
Mean
Scholar
Really
Offer
Time
Sing
Think
Offers
Thinking
Spend
People
Asks
Means

More quotes by Bobby McFerrin

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Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.
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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I grew up in a time when being a musician and learning to be a musician was actually very wonderful.
Bobby McFerrin
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Inviting audiences to open up and hear things differently is an important part of what I do. But I still love to sing songs with words, too.
Bobby McFerrin
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I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.
Bobby McFerrin
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When you worry your face will frown, that will bring everybody down, so don't worry BE HAPPY!:)
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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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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Remembering that life can be full of surprises is useful in any part of your life. You can try a new way of singing a song you’ve performed for years, a new way of showing your family your love for them, or a new recipe. 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
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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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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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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. 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
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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
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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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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
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My father was a very disciplined singer who worked hard at his craft, and I was around that growing up.
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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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 do a lot of performing, but don't get a chance to go to the studio and write good music.
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