Yo-Yo Ma Quotes and Sayings - Page 1
More Yo-Yo Ma quote about:
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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.”
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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.”
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“When people ask me how they should approach performance, I always tell them the professional musician should aspire to the state of the beginner.”
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“Music is powered by ideas. If you don't have clarity of ideas, you're just communicating sheer sound.”
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“Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you're passionate about something, then you're more willing to take risks.”
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“When we enlarge our view of the world, we deepen our understanding of our own lives.”
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“I think one of the great things about being a musician is that you never stop learning.”
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“Our cultural strength has always been derived from our diversity of understanding and experience.”
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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.”
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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.”
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“Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.”
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“I learn something not because I have to, but because I really want to. That's the same view I have for performing. I'm performing because I really want to, not because I have to bring bread back home.”
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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.”
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“The tango is really a combination of many cultures, though it eventually became the national music of Argentina.”
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“Culture opens our hearts to one another. And the currency in culture is not money, but trust.”
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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.”
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“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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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“Classical music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind. If you get introduced to it in the right way, it becomes your friend for life.”
-- Yo-Yo Ma -
“Music is one of the ways we can achieve a kind of shorthand to understand each other.”
-- Yo-Yo Ma -
“I have yet to find something that beats the power of being in love, or the power of music at its most magical.”
-- Yo-Yo Ma -
“Each day I move toward that which I do not understand. The result is a continuous accidental learning which constantly shapes my life.”
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“I don't always have a five-year plan. One thing you must do in life is keep your learning curve as high as possible.”
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“I want to investigate different cultures, to see how their identities and values affect their music. It's one way I can get to know our world, at least to a certain depth.”
-- Yo-Yo Ma -
“This middle age thing is a little weird. Some friends and mentors are gone, and there's a very forward-looking new generation coming up behind me. So it's very much finding my own place.”
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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 -
“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
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