Quotes by Yo-Yo Ma - Page 2

One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people - directors, filmmakers, and writers - over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Collaborating
Components
Directors
People
Two
Years
Aspects
Period
Writers
Project
Filmmakers
So Many People
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I've been traveling all over the world for 25 years, performing, talking to people, studying their cultures and musical instruments, and I always come away with more questions in my head than can be answered.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Instruments
Musical
People
Performing
Talking
Years
Always World People
Answered
Questions
Cultures
World People Always
Studying
Traveling
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Things can fall apart, or threaten to, for many reasons, and then there's got to be a leap of faith. Ultimately, when you're at the edge, you have to go forward or backward; if you go forward, you have to jump together.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Faith
Fall
Leap
Leap Of Faith
Together
Things
Go
Then
Apart
Backward
Edge
Forward
Got
Jump
Reasons
Threaten
Ultimately
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I think all musicians have at one time or another experienced one physical problem or another. I have had tendinitis a couple of times, so I try to be really careful. It takes patience and persistence to overcome injury.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Careful
Injury
One Time
Persistence
Overcome
Experienced
Musicians
Physical
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I'm not likely to forget where I've been and what I've done and learned. I think it's just as important to play new instruments as to play new pieces. The old ones are getting scarcer and the new ones more and more wonderful.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Instruments
Likely
More And More
New Ones
Old Ones
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I love grocery shopping when I'm home. That's what makes me feel totally normal. I love both the idea of home as in being with my family and friends, and also the idea of exploration. I think those two are probably my great interests.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Family
Friends
Home
Exploration
Family And Friends
Grocery Shopping
Normal
Shopping
Thinking
Love Home Great
Love Family Great
Totally
Love Family Home
Idea
Grocery
Interests
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As a child, you respond physically, tactically. You're delighted by sound, you're delighted by recognizing something. It's like hide and seek. Is it there? Is it not there? Is it this note? Is it not this note? It's one fantastic game.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Children
Delighted
Fantastic
Games
Recognizing
Sound
Physically
Respond
Hide
Seek
Note
Tactically
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It's easy for me to care about Toronto, because Toronto is a community that cares about itself. It represents the world. It talks to itself, and because it does, it figures out that there must be a music garden as part of its existence.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Community
Doe
Easy
Existence
Figures
Garden
Toronto
Cares
Talks
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As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody's individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Adaptive
Different
Heritage
Life Changing
Rhythm
Type
Begin
Changes
Different Type
Life Changes
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The role of the musician is to go from concept to full execution. Put another way, it's to go from understanding the content of something to really learning how to communicate it and make sure it's well-received and lives in somebody else.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Another Way
Communicate
Execution
Musician
Roles
Understanding
Content
Concept
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It took me way beyond what I knew, into places of which I was totally scared, but as I became less frightened, I welcomed new ways of thinking and approaching something. It made me an infinitely richer person, and I think a better musician.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Frightened
Musician
New Ways
Scared
Thinking
Totally
Approaching
Thinking Me Better
Me Better New
Became
Beyond
Less
Thinking Better Me
Infinitely
Places
Richer
Took
Ways
Welcomed
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One is that you have to take time, lots of time, to let an idea grow from within. The second is that when you sign on to something, there will be issues of trust, deep trust, the way the members of a string quartet have to trust one another.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Ideas
Issues
Members
Way
Lots
Quartet
Sign
String
String Quartet
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I think the purpose of a piece of music is significant when it actually lives in somebody else. A composer puts down a code, and a performer can activate the code in somebody else. Once it lives in somebody else, it can live in others as well.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Activate
Code
Composer
Pieces
Purpose
Significant
Thinking
Performer
Puts
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There are limits to how much sound a cello can make. That's part of the framing of acoustical instruments. Finding what those limits might be, and then trying to suggest perhaps even the illusion of going beyond is part of that kind of effort.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Effort
Framing
Illusion
Instruments
Limits
Sound
Trying
Cello
Finding
How Much
Perhaps
Suggest
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My job as a performer is to make sure that whatever happens in a performance lives in somebody else, that it's memorable... If you forget tomorrow what you heard yesterday, there's really not much point in you having been there - or me, for that matter.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Heard
Memorable
Tomorrow
Yesterday
Performance
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Music enhances the education of our children by helping them to make connections and broadening the depth with which they think and feel. If we are to hope for a society of culturally literate people, music must be a vital part of our children's education.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Children
People
Thinking
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But an innovation, to grow organically from within, has to be based on an intact tradition, so our idea is to bring together musicians who represent all these traditions, in workshops, festivals, and concerts, to see how we can connect with each other in music.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Concerts
Festivals
Ideas
Innovation
Together
Tradition
Workshops
Connect
Represent
Intact
Musicians
Organically
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Practicing is not only playing your instrument, either by yourself or rehearsing with others - it also includes imagining yourself practicing. Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining the task or actually doing it.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Brain
Connections
Imagining Yourself
Memories
Rehearsing
Muscle
Brain Yourself Your
Actually
Forms
Either
Imagining
Instrument
Memory
Neural
Practicing
Task
Whether
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My teacher, my great cello teacher Leonard Rose, was such a great cellist, and nurturing man, very patient. But I grew up not only admiring him, but obviously Casals, Rostrotovich, Jacqueline du Pre, and many others, including many of my peers and contemporaries.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Men
Teacher
Admiring
Grew
Including
Nurturing
Patient
Rose
Cello
Contemporaries
Him
Obviously
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In performance, we have a greater purpose. The greater purpose is that we're communing together, and we want this moment to be really special for all of us. Because otherwise, why bother to have come at all? It's not about proving anything. It's about sharing something.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Special
Together
Want
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A Senegalese poet said 'In the end we will conserve only what we love. We love only what we understand, and we will understand only what we are taught.' We must learn about other cultures in order to understand, in order to love, and in order to preserve our common world heritage.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Community
Order
Other Cultures
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The tradition of classical music and the opera is such that it used to be the place where social intercourse could take place between all parts of society: politicians, industrialists, artists, citizens, etc. That tradition, I think, still exists, but it's much, much more diluted.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Artist
Citizens
Classical Music
Etc
Intercourse
Opera
Social
Thinking
Tradition
Artists
Classical
Diluted
Politicians
Exists
Parts
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Sound is ephemeral, fleeting, but some sort of a physical manifestation can help you hold on to it longer in time. I'm sure of this; I've always thought the sound that you make is just the tip of the iceberg, like the person that you see physically is just the tip of the iceberg as well.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Ephemeral
Fleeting
Iceberg
Manifestation
Sound
Tip Of The Iceberg
Time Always Person
Person
Time Always See
Sure
Hold
Help
Longer
Well
Physical
Some
See
Tip
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I play an instrument that has four strings, and I'm still trying to get it right. What I've tried to do in the process of playing these four strings is to try and understand the people I meet, the stories they have to tell. And then become an advocate for them and their stories through music.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
People
Play
Trying
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The thing that I've always been slightly frustrated with, was that the idea of a CD is kind of confined to a material possession that you can put on a shelf. And the idea of music, for me, is always about both the communication and the sharing of content. And so the interactive part is missing.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Communication
Cds
Confined
Frustrated
Ideas
Interactive
Missing
Possession
Music Always Me
Content
Idea
Cd
Material
Sharing
Shelf
Slightly
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I really would like to be involved in things and to understand things, and in some ways you've got to be careful what you wish for because I feel very, very blessed to have such an interesting life and to be able to have little snapshots of lives of people from many different parts of the world.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Be Careful
Blessed
Careful
Interesting
Interesting Life
People
Life World People
Different Parts
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What came up at age 49 is I realized that of all the things I'm interested in, the thing I'm most interested in is figuring out what makes people tick, why people think the way they do, why they act the way they do. And I realized that music is such a great way to investigate why people do what they do.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Age
People
Thinking
Tick
Great Music People
Act
Interested
Came
Figuring
Great Way
Investigate
Realized
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I think there are so many ways to become interested in music. I believe signs of sustained interest gives a sense of the right time. Music, if thought of as a language, would perhaps indicate that as early as possible is not so bad. I do believe that a really nurturing first teacher that makes the child love something is crucial.
Yo-Yo Ma / Cellist
Teacher
Believe
Children
Crucial
Nurturing
Right Time
Love Time Music
Interested
Gives
Indicate
Perhaps
Signs
Sustained
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Yo-Yo Ma Quotes - Page 2

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