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Many of the Central Asians know Russian, and Ted Levin speaks it fluently. I speak Chinese, but Mongolian is completely different, so we had to have translators.
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
Speak
Fluently
Many
Asians
Different
Translators
Russian
Speaks
Central
Chinese
Levin
Completely
Mongolian
More quotes by Yo-Yo Ma
The worst thing you can do is say to yourself, I want to be just like somebody else. You have to absorb knowledge from someone else, but ultimately you have to find your own voice.
Yo-Yo Ma
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
With every year of playing, you want to relax one more muscle. Why? Because the more tense you are, the less you can hear.
Yo-Yo Ma
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
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
When people ask me how they should approach performance, I always tell them the professional musician should aspire to the state of the beginner.
Yo-Yo Ma
My involvement in the political arena is to make sure there's a place for culture.
Yo-Yo Ma
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.
Yo-Yo Ma
There's a part of me that's always charging ahead. I'm the curious kid, always going to the edge.
Yo-Yo Ma
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
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
Bach takes you to a very quiet place within yourself, to the inner core, a place where you are calm and at peace.
Yo-Yo Ma
I realized late in life that my twin passions are music and people.
Yo-Yo Ma
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
Each day I move toward that which I do not understand. The result is a continuous accidental learning which constantly shapes my life.
Yo-Yo Ma
Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.
Yo-Yo Ma
We may be coming to a new golden age of instrument making.
Yo-Yo Ma
Perfection is not very communicative
Yo-Yo Ma
One of the marks of a great teacher lies not only in an ability to impart knowledge but also in knowing when to encourage a student to go off on his own.
Yo-Yo Ma
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
