Bobby McFerrin Shows the Power of the Pentatonic Scale

The jazz vocal­ist and ten-time Gram­my win­ner Bob­by McFer­rin turns 61 today. To cel­e­brate, we’re post­ing this clip from the 2009 World Sci­ence Fes­ti­val, in which McFer­rin leads an impromp­tu audi­ence sing-a-long in order to demon­strate the pow­er of the pen­ta­ton­ic scale. We bet you’ve nev­er seen music the­o­ry taught quite like this.

McFer­rin, by the way, is shar­ing the stage with sev­er­al sci­en­tists, includ­ing Daniel Lev­itin, McGill pro­fes­sor and author of the book This is Your Brain on Music. If this clip hap­pens to awak­en your inner croon­er instead of your inner neu­ro­sci­en­tist, you can also check out a short singing les­son with McFer­rin on Qtv.

Sheer­ly Avni is a San Fran­cis­co-based arts and cul­ture writer. Her work has appeared in Salon, LA Week­ly, Vari­ety, Moth­er Jones, and many oth­er pub­li­ca­tions. You can fol­low her on twit­ter at @sheerly.