{"id":1473,"date":"2011-02-04T07:46:22","date_gmt":"2011-02-04T15:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2011\/02\/bobby_mcferrin_on_the_problem\/"},"modified":"2011-02-04T07:46:22","modified_gmt":"2011-02-04T15:46:22","slug":"bobby_mcferrin_on_the_problem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/bobby_mcferrin_on_the_problem.php","title":{"rendered":"Bobby McFerrin on the problem with &#8216;performance&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some <a href=\"http:\/\/berklee.edu\/music\/inside-berklee.html\">great thoughts from singer\/conductor\/composer Bobby McFerrin<\/a> on the Berklee College of Music podcast. He&#8217;s recounting the experience of colleague Yo Yo Ma on a visit to Botswana, where a small village had no concept of why someone would schedule a performance in a specific place at a specific time. Says McFerrin:<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\" style=\"margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;\">\n<div>\n<div>They don&#8217;t have any concept of performance. There was no word in their vocabulary that suggests that music is somehow going to happen later on&#8230;. Music was here. And music was now. Why do they have to wait to hear music, and why do they have to go somewhere else to hear it?<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>We have a tendency to make our performances the most important time or part of our day, when music to these villagers was an integral part of their day.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div>\n<div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>In response, McFerrin makes a point of integrating his concerts into his day, rather than building his day toward those events. He&#8217;ll just show up, walk on stage, and start singing (much to the anxiety of the presenter, probably).&nbsp;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It&#8217;s a reminder that as we strive to make performances and cultural experiences &#8216;special&#8217; we also make them &#8216;separate&#8217; from the daily lives of our communities. And while there&#8217;s value in creating &#8216;an event,&#8217; there&#8217;s also a cost in the way we&#8217;re connected, or not connected, to the music and creation of the everyday.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div><i>Thanks, Pops, for the link!<\/i><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some great thoughts from singer\/conductor\/composer Bobby McFerrin on the Berklee College of Music podcast. He&#8217;s recounting the experience of colleague Yo Yo Ma on a visit to Botswana, where a small village had no concept of why someone would schedule a performance in a specific place at a specific time. Says McFerrin: They don&#8217;t have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1473","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}