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What Do You Call This? – Bobby McFerrin and Expectations

August 10, 2009 By Ian Sidden

Bobby_McFerrinThe potential for interesting performances by singers is endless, and we must expand our definition of what it is to be a singer. Take this video for example. What do you call this type of performance?

Here’s the run-down of what you’re about to see:

Bobby McFerrin starts with an African sounding performance that involved some –call it what you will– beat boxing or mouth percussion, and then there’s a silent period. Don’t stop during the silent period on the video!

Then there will be a visual of a group of scientists and Bobby McFerrin talking about “expectations”. What follows is classic Bobby McFerrin:

What do you call that?

Perhaps we as singers need to move away from adhering so rigidly to genres (“I do musical theater”, “I do opera”, “we do ‘art’ music”) and create something that defies naming from time to time.

Thanks to Ken at Mildly Creative for finding this clip.

[Photo by Erinc Salor]

Related posts:

The Marriage of Figaro This Weekend Default ThumbnailWhat Do You Call This?– “Autotune the News” Default ThumbnailBack to School for Singers: Freshmen Sheet Music Default ThumbnailWeekly Gathering: July 10-17

Filed Under: Craft Tagged With: bobby mcferrin, expectations, what do you call this

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Comments

  1. Sophia says

    August 28, 2009 at 1:35 am

    McFerrin is incredible. He is an artist; it’s that simple. :)

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