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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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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
Then when I was in grammar school I played the clarinet, and then, after clarinet I played the flute in college orchestra - besides singing in the college chorus and things like that.
Bobby McFerrin
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
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
I like to use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.
Bobby McFerrin
Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time.
Bobby McFerrin
But, if there's any aspect of my career that needs attention, it's writing.
Bobby McFerrin
I played piano as a kid; I still play a little bit.
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
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
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
Then I left that school and I went to Cerritos College, which was in southern California; they had one of the best big band programs in the country at the time.
Bobby McFerrin
My father was a very disciplined singer who worked hard at his craft, and I was around that growing up.
Bobby McFerrin
I want to write a book of poetry, as well as children's stories.
Bobby McFerrin
If I can bring joy into the world, if I can get people to stop thinking about their pain for a moment, or the fact the tomorrow morning they're going to get up and tell their boss off... then I'll be successful.
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
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
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
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. One song may be Bach, the next blues, a song from TV, or a nursery rhyme or jazz piece.
Bobby McFerrin
I prepared five songs, I sang them, and he hired me. I started working about a month later at the piano bar.
Bobby McFerrin
I have a lot of albums yet to do.
Bobby McFerrin
I grew up in a time when being a musician and learning to be a musician was actually very wonderful.
Bobby McFerrin
My biggest musical influences are probably my parents.
Bobby McFerrin
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
The true musician is to bring light into people's hearts.
Bobby McFerrin
In every life we have some trouble. But when you worry, you make it double.
Bobby McFerrin
Musicians are the architects of heaven.
Bobby McFerrin
I became hooked on the idea of being able to shoot an image and process it myself, and end up with a product.
Leonard Nimoy
After I'd produced about two dozen pen and ink drawings, one evening I decided that they needed poems to accompany them. I still have no idea where that notion came from, but it took me about two hours to produce verses for these creatures.
Jack Prelutsky
Yeah, that's what kind of, we get the idea a little bit yeah, because other people from different countries also try as hard as they can to get a medal or a gold medal in the Olympic Games. And you know, if they can work hard, we can work hard as well.
Inge de Bruijn
What's fascinating is that when you write a script, it's almost a stream of consciousness. You have an idea that it means something, but you're not always sure what. Then when you get on the set, the actors teach you.
Gary Oldman
I also do not like the idea of soft money, these issue ads - people don't know where the money is coming from, millions and millions of dollars outside of the control of a candidate - there's no accountability.
Scott McCallum
From the beginning, the series has been story driven - I began with a story idea - but research feeds it.
Jean M. Auel
Then I decided I couldn't just crawl in the corner and die, so I started putting pen to paper and wrote some songs. I had no idea what for or who I was going to work with. I tried to find my way and direction.
Glenn Tipton
The idea is, if I can't heal from my art, then how can you heal?
Maynard James Keenan
There is sometimes a peculiar confusion in the West that equates progress to whatever is recent or whatever is new, and it is time we understood that progress has nothing to do with the chronology of an idea.
Barbara Amiel
The idea of licking stamps seemed great fun for me.
Moon Unit Zappa
Learn about the world, the way it works, any kind of science and anthropology, it's really an interesting place we live in. Evolution is a really fantastic idea, even more than the idea of God I think.
Randy Newman
It's slightly complicated for people to grasp the idea of a head of state in human form.
Prince Andrew
As far as I know, only a small minority of mathematicians, even of those with Platonist views, accept the idea that there may be mathematical facts which are true but unknowable.
Abraham Robinson
So my idea of neurotic is spending too much time trying to correct a wrong. When I feel that I'm doing that, then I snap out of it.
Gene Wilder
I'm into the idea of responsibility and edification and these things have found me and I have found them. I wanted to be in the movie and I made it known to Mike.
Rob Morrow
Religion has caused more harm than any other idea since the beginning of time. There's nothing good I can say about it. People use it as a crutch.
Larry Flynt
Many of the Europeans who want Israel to go away don't even know why they do. Nearly a third of those interviewed concede they have no idea what the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about. It's enough to know that Israelis are Jews.
Suzanne Fields
It was an idea we had when Al was in the Senate - to organize and moderate an annual conference that would look at government policy through the lens of the family to help identify ways that the family can be supported and strengthened.
Tipper Gore
Growing up in Hollywood it seemed like every kid was the child of some star. We had no idea that other people would think we were special, because there was no other lifestyle to compare it to.
Liza Minnelli
When employers tell me they prefer married men, and encourage their men to have homes of their own, because it makes them so much steadier, I wonder if they have any idea of all that that implies.
Alice Hamilton
As a matter of fact they'd blacken us down. I guess there's a reason that according to what the Caucasian wanted us to look like. He wanted us to look-if we were Black, then he had his idea of what we look like.
Billy Eckstine