Bobby Mc Ferrin

La semaine dernière je suis allé au concert de Bobby Mc Ferrin. Pour ceux qui ne connaissent pas, il est bien connu pour sa chanson "Don't worry, Be Happy" (qu'il ne chante pas dans ses concerts depuis que George Bush junior l'a utilisee sans son accord durant une campagne electorale).

Last week I went to Bobby Mc Ferrin's concert. For those who don't know him, he is mostly known as the author of "Don't worry, Be Happy" (which he does not perform anymore in concert, saying that by the time it got famous he had already sung it three trillion times, but also because it had been used without his permission by George Bush junior during the last campaign).

Usant de son corps comme seul instrument, capturé par trois micros en triangles et un microphone casque (qu'il a reglé plusieurs fois durant le concert, communiquant en chanson avec les techniciens). Sa voix peut chanter dans un intervalle de tonalites incroyable, il me fait penser a une clarinette humaine. :)

He performs with his body as his sole instrument, captured by three microphones placed around him and a head microphone (about which setting he complained shortly --in singing-- to get it fixed). His voice has an incredible range, he makes me think about a human clarinette. :)

Je savais par ses videos sur UTube qu'il aime faire participer le public, mais il va bien plus loin: il a invité trois spectateurs a danser sur la scene au rythme de ses compositions, la melody se combinant au mouvements des danceurs: les danses furent plus spectaculaires que artistiques (l'un des danseurs a montré plus tard qu'il était bien meilleur pour chanter), mais l'effet était saisissant.

I knew from the UTube videos of his concerts that he likes to make his public sing, but it goes well beyond: he invited three spectators to perform on his singing, the melody of his voice interacting live with the dancing of the performers: the dance were not that great (one of the three performers, showed later that he was really a -very good- singer), but the effect was awesome.

Un peu plus tard il est descendu de la scène et a invité quelques spectateurs a chanter, un par un, avec lui. Quelques-uns étaient incroyablement bons!

A bit later he went down from the scene and invited people one after one to sing with him. Some were amazing!

En guise de finale il a invite 16 spectateurs sur scène, et les a fait chanter selon divers canons. C'était bon, mais ce que j'ai aimé le plus furent les figures immensément souriantes des spectateurs sur la scène :)

He then proceeded to invite 16 singers on the scene, organized in the four classical ranges, and made them sing in various canon. It was nice, but I enjoyed even more the smiling and exhilarated faces of the people on the stage :)

En lieu de "encore", Bobby s'est simplement assis sur la scène et a proposé de répondre à quelques questions. Il a mentionné deux fois que ce qu'il aimait par dessus tout était les interactions avec le public. Je me sens bien en accord avec ce sentiment, tant pour la musique, que l'enseignement et la recherche!

When called for an "encore", Bobby just sat on the stage and proposed to chat a bit, answering questions from the public. He mentioned twice how he enjoys his interaction with the public (as opposed to a lone performance). This made me think about the discussions with Éric Demaine and Claire Mathieu about the social pleasure of doing science with others: we all take pleasure in working with others.