Quote

As a musician I'm kind of nomadic, Waldo-like. I show up in different places, and I'm witness to unbelievable things.

Yo-Yo Ma

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Yo-Yo Ma
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: October 7
Actor
Cellist
Composer
Music Pedagogue
Musician
Paris
France
Yo Yo Ma
YoYo Ma
Things
Unbelievable
Like
Witness
Musician
Places
Show
Shows
Different
Waldo
Kind
Nomadic

More quotes by Yo-Yo Ma

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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
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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
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I realized late in life that my twin passions are music and people.
Yo-Yo Ma
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Sharing is a much better way to communicate than proving.
Yo-Yo Ma
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One of the things I love about music is live performance.
Yo-Yo Ma
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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
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Music has always been transnational people pick up whatever interests them, and certainly a lot of classical music has absorbed influences from all over the world.
Yo-Yo Ma
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You go through phases. You have to reinvent reasons for playing, and one year's answer might not do for another.
Yo-Yo Ma
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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
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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
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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
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When your heart and your mind are engaged, you cannot go wrong.
Yo-Yo Ma
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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.
Yo-Yo Ma
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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
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I think of a piece of music as something that comes alive when it is being performed, and I feel that my role in the transmission of music is to be its best advocate at that moment.
Yo-Yo Ma
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After reaching 50, I began to wonder what the root of life is.
Yo-Yo Ma
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My involvement in the political arena is to make sure there's a place for culture.
Yo-Yo Ma
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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
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People will ask, 'Are you famous?' And I always answer, 'My mother thinks so.'
Yo-Yo Ma
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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