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Nobody else can make the sound you make.

Yo-Yo Ma

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Yo-Yo Ma
Age: 68
Born: 1955
Born: October 7
Actor
Cellist
Composer
Music Pedagogue
Musician
Paris
France
Yo Yo Ma
YoYo Ma
Make
Nobody
Sound
Else

More quotes by Yo-Yo Ma

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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
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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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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
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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.
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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
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When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.
Yo-Yo Ma
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You must have a reason to be in the places to which you go, and you must do only things that you really care about.
Yo-Yo Ma
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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
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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.
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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Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.
Yo-Yo Ma
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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
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I think anybody who goes away finds you appreciate home more when you return.
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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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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I think that peace is, in many ways, a precondition of joy.
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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I think one of the great things about being a musician is that you never stop learning.
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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Good things happen when you meet strangers.
Yo-Yo Ma