Went to see Bobby McFerrin at the Boston Symphony hall last night with Ben, Ben's grandmother, Lauren and Amy. Bobby puts on a fabulous show. He is such a happy, comfortable, spontaneous presence on stage - and seems to have a great rapport with his backing group.Ben and I noticed that a lot of what Bobby does on stage with his backing musicians is like what we do with PureJoy. The algorithm goes something like this: First, invent a bassline, sing it with the bass section a few times around, then say "take it", and they will start looping it. Then, move to the tenors, and do the same thing. Repeat with altos and sopranos, and by that time you've got a great background song to jam and improvise on top of.
Moreover, we were noticing elements of the performance that we have been integrating only lately into our PureJoy jams. For instance, dynamics. Bobby would get the piece set up, then bring one section down in volume, to highlight the others. Repeat, rotate, etc.. He was exercising many of the elements that make a musical performance exciting for both performers and audience. It was really interesting to see things that he did that we've been rehearsing lately. The difference is that the things we do with technology, Bobby does with humans. It's beautiful for live performance, if you're lucky enough to have 12 other talented performers to jam with you - but for the everyday person, I think we're really on to something....
