MM#27 – Bobbi McFerrin Stimulates My Mind

Occasionally someone does something that is so simple and yet so profound…..in this case I am jealous I didn’t think of doing this with my conference audiences first….

Here is how Bobbi McFerrin makes a musical metaphor of how our expectations are embedded in our brain.

We don’t know much about the human brain on music.

Do people instinctively know the sound patterns of the pentatonic scale?

Is there a base level of musical knowledge in all of us, just waiting to be tapped?

Or is the pentatonic scale simply so common in Western music that it has become ingrained in all of our minds?

Improvisational genius Bobby McFerrin uses audience participation to demonstrate the power of the pentatonic scale—or at least the audience’s familiarity with it.