Bobby McFerrin

I have a lot of albums yet to do.

Don’t worry, be happy!

The true musician is to bring light into people’s hearts.

What I learned the most from Prince was putting art first, being creatively ambitious, and putting creativity at the forefront of what I do.

I’ve always felt rock and roll was very, very wholesome music.

One way or the other, if you want to find reasons why you shouldn’t keep on, you’ll find ’em. The obstacles are all there; there are a million of ’em.

It is great to have your own label; you can cultivate your own artists… I’ve worked with pretty much everyone I wanted to.

Music is born out of the inner sounds within a soul.

Women bring something different to an instrument if they are respectful of their feminine aesthetic.

When you begin to teach jazz, the most dangerous thing is that you tend to teach style…I had eleven piano students, and I would say eight of them didn’t even want to know about chords or anything – they didn’t even want to do anything that anybody had ever done, because they didn’t want to be imitators. Well, of course, this is pretty naive…but nevertheless it does bring to light the fact that if you’re going to try to teach jazz…you must abstract the principles of music which have nothing to do with style, and this is exceedingly difficult. So there, the teaching of jazz is a very touchy point. It ends up where the jazz player, ultimately, if he’s going to be a serious jazz player, teaches himself.

I let my body play what’s in my heart. I play life instead of notes. I play what I lived.

I’m going to make music out of whatever style it is, being true to the artform itself.

I get interested in the various ways that music is being done in the culture, and some of it I like thoroughly enough to want to learn about it. The way I have been successful at doing that is to become part of it.

Just because I’m playing Jazz I don’t forget about me. I play or write me the way I feel through Jazz.

Musicians tell me, if what I’m doing is right, they should never have gone to school.

When you just get mixed up and there’s too much going on, then it’s time to pick up your guitar.

Music allows the great opportunity to play with people you love.

An orchestra can become as familiar and reliable an instrument as a well-known, well-worn piano.