Bobby McFerrin and the Pentatonic Scale

August 3rd, 2009

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Music

Bobby McFerrin and the Pentatonic Scale

Today I happened upon this delightful video from, oddly, the World Science Festival 2009:

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

While I expect he’s made a great deal of money off of “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, it’s unfortunate that that’s what most people think of when they hear McFerrin’s name. I don’t know much about jazz, but every time I hear him he strikes me as this remarkably capable and original vocalist.

Tags: bobby mcferrin, improv, Music, pentatonic scale, science festival

Comments: 3 Responses so far

Derek K. Miller
August 3rd, 2009
10:32 pm

For some deep limbic reason, big massed groups of singers like that bring me close to crying. I speculate about why in my own post.

[Reply]

Cool science; where are the women?; biology discovers graphical notations « FrogHeart
August 12th, 2009
7:43 am

[...] It does seem as if there’s some sort of campaign to make science ‘cool’ in the US. I say campaign because there was also, a few months ago, the World Science Festival in New York (mentioned in my June 12, 2009 posting). Thanks to Darren Barefoot’s blog I see they have posted some highlights and videos from the festival. Barefoot features one of musician Bobby McFerrin’s presentations here. [...]