A Quote by Bobby McFerrin

Improvisation is the courage to move from one note to the next.

Bobby McFerrin

Quote Topics

Courage Improvisation Move Next Note

Quote Author

Bobby McFerrin
American - Musician
Born: March 11, 1950

Improvisation was the blood and bone of jazz, and in the classic, New Orleans jazz it was collective improvisation in which each performer, seemingly going his own melodic way, played in harmony, dissonance, or counterpoint with the improvisations of his colleagues. Quite unlike ragtime, which was written down in many cases by its composers and could be repeated note for note (if not expression for expression) by others, jazz was a performer's not a composer's art.

Russell Lynes

The way through the challenge is to get still and ask yourself, 'What is the next right move? What is the next right move?' and then, from that space, make the next right move and the next right move.

Oprah Winfrey

Tennis is a great game, a great sport because you're out there by yourself, so you have to move on to the next point, next game, next set, whatever. It's the same thing in basketball. If you miss a shot, you move onto the next one. If you turn it over, you move onto the next play. That certainly helped me.

Gordon Hayward

For the men and women of the FBI, bravery is reflected not only in the physical courage often necessary in the job. It can be seen in the courage of conviction, in the courage to act with wisdom in the face of fear, and in the courage it takes to admit mistakes and move forward.

Robert Mueller

Most of my music is improvisation, and composition is improvisation. Even if I have a score, it is improvisation.

Yoshi Wada

If you hit a wrong note, it's the next note that you play that determines if it's good or bad.

Miles Davis

When you move handheld, and the director of photography has the courage to shoot with no lights, the set becomes a space of creativity and freedom where actors can move wherever they want to move.

Jean-Marc Vallee

The amazing thing about the cistern is that, if you're improvising in a dead room, you play your note and then you're left with your thoughts and you have to be really quick on your feet and be able to move through many different musical thoughts seamlessly. Improvising there is just, like, you play a note and then you had at least ten seconds to think, "What would be the perfect accompanying note to that?" And then you could add that note. You can just build this puzzle that was really amazing.

Jherek Bischoff

I always hankered to be a composer - I was mad about music, though I never studied seriously, and can't read a note. But I learned to play the piano and became pretty skillful at improvisation, especially after a drop or two.

Conrad Aiken

I don't remember that I copied any guitar player note-for-note. But I remember copying Charlie Parker note for note.

Joe Pass

Usually when you're playing with other people in not such a reverberant room, you have to be quick on your feet and think about stuff really quickly. But inside the cistern, it was almost like I was at home on my computer arranging and taking time thinking about the next step, the next note. Instead, the room was my collaborator. I could hear the note and sit there and think. I could be arranging as I was going in real time, which was fascinating.

Jherek Bischoff

I would make a huge distinction between theater improvisation and film improvisation.

Christopher Guest

To write a book about improvisation is partly a contradiction in terms. Improvisation is spontaneous. It's in the moment.

Sally Schneider

What is courage? This courage will not be the opposite of despair. We shall often be faced with despair, as indeed every sensitive person has been during the last several decades in this country. Hence Kierkegaard and Nietzsche and Camus and Sartre have proclaimed that courage is not the absence of despair; it is, rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair.

Rollo May

When I left the work world, I started designing my dream house. I dived into architecture and bought seven vacant lots. My plan was to build one house, move in, and build the next. If the next was better, I'd move in and sell the previous one - so on and so forth.