Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale

What instrument do you play? Bobby: "The crowd"

The last crowdbender

the best part is that the audience doesn't even realise they're in a pentatonic scale. When Bobby went down below the tonic, the audience still knew which note to sing instinctively, and the fact that the scale is imprinted in our minds is honestly so cool.

What Bobby is doing here is transcendent. He gives an audience four notes of a five note scale, with no context, with no explanation, and the audience is intuitively able to grasp what the 5th note of the scale is. Not only that, the audience is able to intuitively understand the way the scale continues, above and below the range they were given. The fact that Bobby says this works with audience anywhere in the world speaks to a deep cross-cultural piece of the human experience and how we understand music and ourselves. Something is happening at the fundamental level here and I think it's lost on some people how truly profound this is.

"Congratulations, you just played yourselves."

I don't know why, but I always end up smiling like an idiot each time I watch this video. Music is really amazing.

Years later I still love this clip. I heard at the end one of the speakers ask if Bobby "wanted a job in neuroscience" and my first thought was "Sir, he is a musician. He already has a job in neuroscience."

This is made more amazing after realizing he’s moving left to right in the traditional low to high pitches in the audience perspective, but contrary to his own. In other words, as he moves to HIS left, the “notes” raise in pitch, but this is to the right in the audience perspective, so he’s switching it in his own mind. Amazing man.

I have to confess... I used this in my own choir classroom, and it worked like a charm! The kids were astounded!

when you realize the audience is actually applauding at themselves

I'm 11 years too late... Magic!!!!

I love how the panelists at first just smiled seeing this is kinda fun, then Bobby moved to the 3rd note and everyone were in awe

This is probably my favourite video in the whole internet, it's just amazing to see a group of brains decipher this scale and emitting vocal notes accordingly without any previous rule.

The guy who makes the Neuroscience comment at 2:51 is Daniel Levitin, who coined and documented the Levitin effect: that people tend to remember songs in the correct key.

I showed this to a colleague of mine at a music school we teach earlier today. Told her to follow what Bobby McFerrin does. She followed the two notes he gave the audience, and as soon as he jumped to the third, she got the exact note. You should've seen the astonishment on her face.

This was deeply emotional for me. He just demonstrated how we are all one.

This is just genius. Got me smiling like a fool. Lol

He's playing an instrument made of people

He came to my University in 2001, and he just . . . he can turn everything on its head, surprise the heck out of everyone, and still be so down to earth.

Music class: “Bobby, time to pick your instrument!” “Are people an instrument?” “No silly kiddo, you can’t play people.” Decades later: