Home : Plato's Words : May 2004

May, 2004

In April I saw the great Bobby McFerrin in concert here in Vancouver. He performed a solo voice show that had me absolutely spellbound. Arriving on the stage he proceeded to improvise with that glorious voice of his and the magic began. He has such a remarkable range but more than that he has the ability to use several colors in his singing voice. His speaking voice is rich and deep while his singing voice can go from a childlike falsetto to a deep baritone range. One of the constants throughout his singing is his sense of rhythm. It hits you right away as he begins new pieces. The groove is so strong that you can feel it in your own body. All of this comes from someone who is singing acapella without accompaniment of any kind. He is his own accompaniment. Somehow he explores rhythm, melody and harmony all at once. He also has such a way of breathing when he sings that as he is taking the breath he is still producing sound as the air enters his body. This creates an absolutely seamless sound. The rhythm never falters and the flow of melody is constantly changing in color and texture.

Bobby McFerrin is such a warm and giving performer that when he asked for a few singing volunteers to join him on the stage people ran up to be a part of the musical experience. People were not too shy to get up there with someone that friendly and generous in his stage banter. Kids and adults alike went up and joined him as he orchestrated the voices into a beautiful choir, singing rhythmic and melodic motifs until a collage of sound was created and over which he improvised. Absolutely beautiful!

Another wonderful audience participation occurred when he asked for the modern dancers in the audience to come and join him.  I believe he asked for 6-8 people to come up and instead around 20 people or so rushed the stage in their excitement to be up there. What he then did was to sit in a chair as each dancer standing in a line, child or adult went to the front of the stage and simply improvised a dance as he provided the accompaniment with his voice. He was so intuitive and quickly assessed individual personalities and dynamically provided an individual improvising soundtrack for each dancer. One lovely moment occurred when an adorable little girl in a red dress shyly went to the front of the stage and gently swayed back and forth in time as if she may have had a few ballet lessons. She appeared to be doing a type of unaffected balancé step as Bobby sweetly produced a sound that so matched her little girl quality. For a couple of the more adventurous and uninhibited dancers he produced a wilder rhythmic soundscape. What fun that must have been improvising to Bobby McFerrin's singing! I may have been inspired to rush to participate myself had it not been for the fact that I was up in the balcony just above the stage and couldn't very well make it down there. Then again I am not known for my uninhibited dancing in general so perhaps I would have chickened out in the end. I was amazed however how comfortable everyone in the audience was as we all participated in vocal call and response sections to pieces that Bobby performed. His is truly an interactive concert. No one appeared too shy to participate. I think that is quite rare with an audience although I could be wrong. I believe people felt at ease to participate and actually wanted to share in the music making with someone as unique as Bobby McFerrin.

This wasn't just a concert of jazz improvisation either. Bobby included gospel pieces, folk style tunes, songs from shows such as The Wizard of Oz and classical music too. He proceeded to sing one of the Bach preludes over which we the audience were to sing the famous Ave Maria melody. Many people know the words and the melody so we had several different voices throughout the theatre sing together over the keyboard part, which Bobby so gloriously sang. This as you may imagine was truly beautiful. You could hear a few trained voices in amongst the masses. Men and women of all ages and backgrounds sharing the Ave Maria melody over Bobby's Bach notes. Ah the human voice. It can cause such pain with angry words that may be said in the heat of the moment but it can create such beauty in music, as is the case with Bobby McFerrin and his remarkable gift. The beauty of his voice and the warmth of his personality in this special concert moved me deeply and is not something that I will ever forget.

To end my words today:

Happy month of May…
Spring is here to stay…
Sunshine all the day…
Flowers shout hooray!

Karin