Latest Bobby McFerrin Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• 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

  Song, Drinking, Silly

  "Sing Your Prayers: An Interview With Bobby McFerrin". Omega Institute Interview, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 11, 2012.

• 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

  Mean, Thinking, People

  "Sing Your Prayers: An Interview With Bobby McFerrin". Omega Institute Interview, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 11, 2012.

• 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

  Teaching, Thinking, People

  "Sing Your Prayers: An Interview With Bobby McFerrin". Omega Institute Interview, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 11, 2012.

• 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

  Thinking, Deserve More, Play

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• 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

  Song, Years, Play

  "Sing Your Prayers: An Interview With Bobby McFerrin". Omega Institute Interview, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 11, 2012.

• 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

  Spiritual, Prayer, Singing

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• 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

  Mean, Keys, Expectations

  "Sing Your Prayers: An Interview With Bobby McFerrin". Omega Institute Interview, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 11, 2012.

• 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. Each of us might give that phrase a different meaning. It's open to interpretation, and one song becomes a thousand songs. I love that.

  Bobby McFerrin

  Song, Mean, Heart

  Source: www.huffingtonpost.com

• 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

  Song, Important, Audience

  "Sing Your Prayers: An Interview With Bobby McFerrin". Omega Institute Interview, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 11, 2012.

• 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. 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. 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

  Song, Moving, Talking

  "Sing Your Prayers: An Interview With Bobby McFerrin". Omega Institute Interview, www.huffingtonpost.com. June 11, 2012.