Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McFerrin: That's — that's the whole bottom line. That's why I'm a musician, you know.
Ms. Tippett: And you know — and this is connected to what we're talking about I think. There are all these videos on YouTube of you teaching the pentatonic scale to a crowd full of people at World Science Festival. But it's — so when you perform and when you do something like that, you get people singing together. And there's — there's something completely elemental and life-giving about that, right? I mean, we don't do that in this culture very often. When you have the experience, you wonder why don't we do that, right?
Mr. McFerrin: Why don't we? Why don't we sing more often …
Ms. Tippett: Yeah.
Mr. McFerrin: … when we want to?
[Soundbite from World Science Festival 2009]
Ms. Tippett: This is Bobby McFerrin at that World Science Festival in 2009. He was on a panel with a group of neuroscientists, when he led the audience in an impromptu round of the pentatonic scale. Following the movement of his body, they saw and sang the notes.
[Soundbite from World Science Festival 2009]
Mr. McFerrin: For me, the high points of my evenings is hearing 3,000 voices, you know, singing with me. You know it's all about getting them to remember who they are and what they can do.
[Music: “Ave Maria” by Bobby McFerrin]
Mr. McFerrin: I mean, who hasn't had this fantasy: You go to a concert, you listen to this great band, you've got a wonderful voice, you know, you hear the background singers singing and they are leaving out that one note that you love. And so you sing that third part, you know. You're sitting in your seat but you're still singing their part, and you wish were up on stage with them. Or who hasn't had the fantasy of, you know, you're attending a symphony orchestra, it's 8:00; it's 8:15; it's 8:30. The conductor hasn't showed up, you know. The orchestra personnel director walks out on stage and says, you know, the conductor can't make it is there anyone in the audience who knows tonight's program? Would they lead the orchestra, you know, through Beethoven's Seventh Symphony? Who hasn't had that fantasy that all of a sudden you've been given the opportunity to direct this great, you know, choir or orchestra or sing background vocals with a really great band? Everyone has had that fantasy, you know, so they want to do it. They're ready to go, you know.
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm. It's the karaoke — the impulse behind karaoke.
[Music: “Ave Maria” by Bobby McFerrin]
Ms. Tippett: If I ask you, you know, if you think about — what does — what does that teach you? What do you take from that about — like what — what makes us human or the nature of God? Because there is something — if for — it's rare but it's also completely essential, this singing together.
Mr. McFerrin: Singing together, it's essential for me, because I grew up in a house full of singers.
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McFerrin: There was singing in my house going on all the time. It was very, very natural. My parents — both my parents were voice teachers. So there were students traipsing in and out of the house all day long. When my father made his debut at the Met in 1955, the entire sort of African-American classical community would come by the house to congratulate my dad, you know, and there would always be singers in the house having sort of like singing parties.
My mother was the soprano soloist at the church that I grew up in. So there was singing, singing, singing going on all the time. To me, it's very, very natural for me to break out into song, because I do it all the time. I've been trying to think of ways to get an audience to sing even more than I've allowed them to in the past. You know how can I really make them the band, you know.
And what this woman said the other day, when she says, "I really feel great now." This is what I want everyone to experience it — when at the end of my concert is everyone has got — has this sense of rejoicing or joy.Ms. Tippett: Yeah.
Mr. McFerrin: You know, because I want everyone to feel joy at the end of a concert. Not, I don't want them to be blown away by what I do. I want them to have this sense of real, real joy from the depths of their being. That's what it's all about, because I think when you take them to that place then you introduce — you open up a place where grace can come in, you know?
[Music: “Mass” by Bobby McFerrin]
Ms. Tippett: Can you explain why — why music does that, why singing taps that place?
Mr. McFerrin: Oh, God, isn't it a wonderful thing. It is a wonderful thing, what music can do. There have been nights when I've walked on stage and I have felt absolutely awful, just terrible, you know, physically, you know, ill — raging headache or something, you know. And at the end of a concert, you know, I'm 70 percent healed. You know, the headache is …
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Mr. McFerrin: … is like gone away. Or there have been nights when I've emotionally been just maybe a little bit off — maybe I've had an argument with someone or a misunderstanding with one of my children or something like that, you know. And I walk on stage and I'm just like (makes growling noise).
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McFerrin: OK, blah, blah, blah, you know, fists clenched and just sort of, you know, just hot, you know. And within a minute, you know, I'm open, I'm happy, I've cooled off. I think the best way to sort of deal with temptation is to actually sing, you know?
Ms. Tippett: Really?
Mr. McFerrin: Yeah. Yeah, if you're — if you're like tempted to say the wrong thing or whatever, you know, to open up your mouth and start singing is a great way to deflect negative emotion. I think it's a really good way to feed yourself some positive.
Ms. Tippett: Singing as an ethical discipline.
Mr. McFerrin: There you go. And why not, yeah.
Ms. Tippett: So in — in a lot meditative traditions, there's this core insight that the breath unites mind and body and spirit. And voice, singing, is also a lot about breath, right?
Mr. McFerrin: Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: Especially the way you do it. I was just kind of mulling over that again. It's not — so — so where this took me when I was thinking about you is, it also seems like the voice — which makes sense, because it's an extension of breath in many ways — also does this organic thing of getting us into alignment somehow, bringing mind and body and …
Mr. McFerrin: Yeah, I at one point attempted to practice some kind of Buddhist breathing discipline, you know, watching my breath, you know, just simply watching it.
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McFerrin: It wasn't — it wasn't enough for me, you know. But when I started singing, to me that's what was missing, you know. Watching my breath was one thing; watching a sound is another. Watching a sound on a breath is another thing altogether. And — and I've pretty much kept up that discipline. Even now when I'm on stage, I watch what comes out. I hear it, but I also watch to see. I mean you can imagine notes coming out of your mouth. You can imagine that when you sing, just like you can imagine words, you know. "I love you," you can imagine that.
Ms. Tippett: Yeah.
Mr. McFerrin: You know, and sounds — you can also imagine sound coming out of your mouth. So I like to think of sound coming out, going out, surrounding the room that I'm in, you know, surrounding myself, surrounding people.
Ms. Tippett: So you mean that when you are singing though, you're watching the sound like you might watch the breath in meditation. It's — it's happening and you're paying attention to it at the same time.
Mr. McFerrin: I'm paying attention to it, yes. You're simply watching it come out. Now, I have to say in the very beginning, I didn't understand that and I wasn't doing that. That came over time, you know, like, you know, when you do something any activity over, over, and over again. You've been doing these interviews for — for years now, you know, and you don't even think about them, I guess, anymore. I guess you certainly do your research, I mean, we do our research, I mean …
Ms. Tippett: Yeah, but it's different every time, right?
Mr. McFerrin: It's different every time.
Ms. Tippett: And every time it's risky, you don't know — you don't know what will happen.
Mr. McFerrin: That's right.
Ms. Tippett: I mean, just knowing the techniques doesn't control the experience.
Mr. McFerrin: That's right.
Ms. Tippett: And you don't even want the experience controlled.
Mr. McFerrin: You know, I spend a lot of time — well quite a bit of time working with a pianist by the name of Chick Corea. And a few months ago, he was playing a club called the Blue Note in New York City, with Roy Haynes on drums. I can't remember who else was in the band. And I couldn't attend the gig, so he invited me to the sound check. So I just went to the sound check and I'm sitting in the club and he's playing and the thing that struck me was the ease in which he played. You know, he's at that point — and all musicians want this. They want to get to the point where they don't think — they don't have to think anymore about their technique.
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McFerrin: They simply have it. It's not something they struggle to get, you know, anymore. They've got it, you know; they're not conscious of themselves playing. They just play. You know, they're not thinking about playing; they're just playing. And it's taken me a long, long, long time to get there. I started singing at 27. I'm 61. And now I can say that I've gotten to the point where I don't even think about singing. I just sing.
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McFerrin: You know? It just comes out. There use to be a point where I would be afraid of making mistakes. I'm no longer afraid of making mistakes. I make them every night during a performance. Something happens: I meant for my voice to go right and it went left instead. I meant for my voice to go up and it goes down, you know. Wherever my voice goes, wherever it takes me I just follow it. I just watch it. It leads me to whatever, you know. I trust it.
[Music: “Spain” by Bobby McFerrin]
Ms. Tippett: I'm Krista Tippett and this is On Being. Today, with a master of vocal improvisation, Bobby McFerrin.
Ms. Tippett: So much of what you say about what you've learned about music is also just true of life, right?
Mr. McFerrin: Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: I mean — right? I mean, the challenge of just being yourself, the reality that you will make mistakes and that it's …
Mr. McFerrin: Oh, my goodness, yes, of course.
Ms. Tippett: Right?
Mr. McFerrin: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it's all about that. You know if you can't play with four strings, play with three. If you've got a guitar with only one string on it, then play a one-string guitar. But you know you just use what you have and — and do your best. And there you have it.
Ms. Tippett: Do you ever think about what — what is it about you that made you — that — that has allowed you to inhabit music like this and really as a — what did I say at the beginning, I thought of you as, uh, an explorer on the frontier of music, but it's also as music as a human frontier.
Mr. McFerrin: Well, you know, it's funny the first thing that came to my mind was watching my father give voice lessons. You know, have you — do you ever watch American Idol?
Ms. Tippett: My children watch it, I try.
Mr. McFerrin: Yeah, I know.
Ms. Tippett: I try.
Mr. McFerrin: Sure. You know, these singers have these wonderful voices, you know, I'm, you know — every …
Ms. Tippett: Yeah, right.
Mr. McFerrin: … once in a while, I thought to myself if I was asked to be like a guest judge on the show would I — would I volunteer would I do it? I don't know, but you know these singers, God bless them, God bless them, because they have wonderful instruments. They have a wonderful voice. They can sing well. They can sing in tune most of the time.
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McFerrin: You know, uh, they have wonderful instruments, but my father would say, "OK. So what? So what you got a wonderful instrument? So what you can sing in tune? So What?" You know, big deal. You know, what we want is the core — your — your essence. We want your essence. That's what we want to hear more than anything, you know?
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McFerrin: That's what he was after. And I think that's what I got from him. Why I do what I do is because I'm on — I'm — I'm looking for that constantly.
Ms. Tippett: You look for it in a really different way though, right?
Mr. McFerrin: In a very different way.
Ms. Tippett: You draw it out of people, maybe rather than pushing.
Mr. McFerrin: Right. Yeah.
Ms. Tippett: You're pulling it out.
Mr. McFerrin: Pulling it out.
Ms. Tippett: Yeah. So, you know, I want to talk to you about spiritualities in your work, and it's a hard thing to talk about …
Mr. McFerrin: Why?
Ms. Tippett: It's in your music. It's hard to put words around.
Mr. McFerrin: It is — it's very difficult …
Ms. Tippett: It's hard to put good-enough words — that's what I mean …
Mr. McFerrin: … to put words around.
Ms. Tippett: It's hard to put good-enough words around.
Mr. McFerrin: Yes, that's true.
Ms. Tippett: And I don't even think we could do justice to it with words — you know, talking about it in your music.
Mr. McFerrin: Right.
Ms. Tippett: But can we try?
Mr. McFerrin: We can.
Ms. Tippett: I mean, here's something I wanted to read to you. This was just some person on the Internet writing about VOCAbuLarieS, which is your 2010 album.
Mr. McFerrin: Mm-hmm.
Ms. Tippett: And he's kind wary about spirituality, in general, and he's actually trying to make it work. He says, "He may be spiritual," of Bobby McFerrin, "but he apparently knows the world of the flesh as well, and has a very wicked sense of humor." Now, what's interesting to me is he's writing that as though those things are at odds, but I think that that gets at some of the features of your spirituality that it's fleshly and it's humorous.
Mr. McFerrin: Yes. Yes, but isn't it true though that it's a constant, constant battle between the spirit and the flesh that we live through every single day. Everyone has the spirit. Everyone is spiritual in the sense it's — is that the spirit is the animating factor of our lives. Without the spirit we couldn't be alive. I sincerely believe. You know, I remember when my wife's mother died, she said that when — the moment that her mother died, she knew that what she was looking at was no longer her mother because the spirit had left her body.
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Mr. McFerrin: And it's the spirit that animates our life. But everyday from the moment that you get up until the hour that you go to bed, you are battling — your spirit and your flesh are battling for dominance, constantly, you know? You know that the right thing to do is to not say what's on your mind, even though it might be true and even though it might be necessary, but it's not kind.
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McFerrin: But you want to say it anyway, you're battling with the flesh and the spirit. The flesh says, just get it off your chest. And the spirit says, no wait, you know. Think, you know. Pause. Find the right word or the right time. Maybe now is not the time to do it. I mean it's a constant war. So what this guy is saying is absolutely true, but it's true for everyone. You know?
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm. But the spirituality in your music is embodied, right? It's fleshly too. I mean that joy — that joy that we — you talked about. That — that transformative thing that happens when you start singing is not just — it's not just about the sound. It's something that's happening in your whole body. And music has that transformative effect on a listener as well.
Mr. McFerrin: Yeah, well, you know one of the things that I know in 90 minutes of performing on stage or being on stage is that I'm in the battle with the flesh and I'm going to win. You know at the end of — you know for 90 minutes I'm victorious.
Ms. Tippett: Right.
Mr. McFerrin: You know, I'm going to win this battle, because that's what it's — that's what it's all about. You know singing to me is like singing through the spirit. You know, once I had — I had an interesting experience once. I was in Paris, and I had four nights at this fabulous theater. And at the end of the first night, a woman came backstage and said that she had spent a year studying with this well-known ethnomusicologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. They had been studying African languages — particularly African languages that had been extinct or near extinction. She introduced who she was and she says, "I want to know how you know these languages that I have been studying for the last year, because I heard you singing them." Now, I said …
Ms. Tippett: Really?
Mr. McFerrin: Yeah, I said to her, "Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I don't know what you are talking about. You know, I just open up my mouth and I sing whatever comes out, you know, (singing melody) you know, because to me that is a language and it sounds better than (singing melody). It just sounds a lot more interesting."
Ms. Tippett: Yeah.
Mr. McFerrin: She says, "Well, you know, I heard moments when you were singing these sounds, these languages, you know, that I had been working on. I want to know how you know them." And I said, "Well, I don't know them and I hate to disappoint you." But what that got me thinking about was the fact that we are — we are embodied memories of our ancestors. I have my father in me — I have information in my head. I know my dad; I can tell you stories about my dad because he told me them or I watched them. And he in turn has a memory of his father, and so on and so on. So I began to think, well am I — you know, am I accessing a memory when I sing? And this is the only way I can access it by — is through my voice, you know. Is that — is this the way I get to it? I find that actually kind of interesting.
Ms. Tippett: That's really interesting.
Mr. McFerrin: You know, it's like an ancestral memory, like, we all have it, you know. So how far back does it go? I mean, maybe it goes all the way back, you know.
Ms. Tippett: Do you think singing is older than language? That music is older than words.
Mr. McFerrin: I don't know for sure. Do I think that it — that music is a — is a tool for more than entertainment? Definitely. Is it a tool for inner attainment? I use it for that. I use it to pray, you know. I sing my prayers — in my room, in the morning. In my morning discipline, you know, I walk the floor back and forth, back and forth and pray. And sometimes, all of sudden, I just start singing something because it's the best way I can get it out, you know.
Ms. Tippett: How do you think about mystery? Is that a word you use?
Mr. McFerrin: I do. I use it quite a bit. I love the mystery of improvisation — you never know what's going to happen, you know. I have no idea what's going to happen tonight; I'm looking forward to finding out.
Ms. Tippett: Mm-hmm.
Mr. McFerrin: You know, I mean, that's what it's all about.
[Music: “Common Threads” by Bobby McFerrin]
Ms. Tippett: That evening Bobby McFerrin performed a solo show to a sold-out audience at Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis. The music you heard this hour came from several of his albums, including VOCAbuLarieS, Medicine Music, and Beyond Words. He has a new album called SpiritYouAll.
You can listen again to the entire playlist at our website, onbeing.org. There you'll also find that mesmerizing video of Bobby McFerrin at the World Science Festival, and you can watch or listen to my entire conversation with him. Follow everything we do through our weekly email newsletter. Just click the newsletter link on any page at onbeing.org
[Music: “Wailers” by Bobby McFerrin]
Ms. Tippett: On Being is Trent Gilliss, Chris Heagle, Lily Percy, Mikel Elcessor, Mariah Helgeson, Mary Sue Hannan, and Joshua Rae.
Special thanks this week to Gwen Pappas , Sandi Brown, Chuck Olsen, and Matt Ehling.
[Music: “Seven League Boots” by Zoe Keating]
[On Being Extra]
Ms. Tippett: It’s a beautiful thing to work with people and projects you admire, and this week “The Moth Radio Hour” has done me the great honor of podcasting a story they asked me to tell at one of their magical stage shows. “The Moth” reminds all of us of how the particular stories of our lives are openings for the universal adventure of what it means to be human. The story I told begins in a small town in Oklahoma and ends on the west coast of Ireland with a wizard-like wise woman named Mary Madison — whom I had never met before.
Ms. Tippett: My feet are bare in a bowl full of stones from the Irish coast, and she is in fact telling me things she can’t possibly know, she knew nothing about me, she doesn’t even ask your name or what you do...She told me about my work, she told me about myself, she described my children exquisitely. And then she started describing this gentleman she was seeing and, um, clearly it was my grandfather.
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