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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
Chinese
Different
Asians
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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
Live
Music
Down
" A composition is always more than the sum of its parts. In other words, a really good piece of music is more than itself. It's sort of like a prism, which you can see from each facet a single totality. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Always
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" 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
Muscle
You
Year
" After reaching 50, I began to wonder what the root of life is. "
Yo-Yo Ma
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Wonder
After
" When we have a good balance between thinking and feeling... our actions and lives are always the richer for it. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Good
Feeling
Balance
" 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
You
Creativity
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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
Thinking
Person
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" Children, in a way, are constant learners. Certainly sponge-like. Absorbing everything without careful analysis, even though, at the same time, they are certainly capable of incredible insights. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Everything
Children
Time
" 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
Grow
Deep
Time
" One of the things I love about music is live performance. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Music
Live
Things
" The tango is really a combination of many cultures, though it eventually became the national music of Argentina. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Though
Music
Argentina
" Once something is memorable, it's living and you're using it. That to me is the foundation of a creative society. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Me
Society
You
" I remember when I was growing up. My great wish was to understand who I was and how I fit in the world. "
Yo-Yo Ma
World
Great
Growing Up
" 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
Time
Teacher
Music
" Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Been
Jazz
Including
" 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
You
Blessed
Life
" I think anybody who goes away finds you appreciate home more when you return. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Appreciate
You
Think
" My involvement in the political arena is to make sure there's a place for culture. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Place
Culture
Involvement
" 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
Kind
Illusion
Finding
" 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
Forget
Done
Important
" We may be coming to a new golden age of instrument making. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Age
Coming
Golden
" 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
Time
Try
Patience
" Mastering music is more than learning technical skills. Practicing is about quality, not quantity. Some days I practice for hours; other days it will be just a few minutes. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Quality
Practice
Music
" 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
People
Gift
Culture
" 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
Music
Think
Alive
" 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
Head
World
Studying
" You go through phases. You have to reinvent reasons for playing, and one year's answer might not do for another. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Answer
You
Year
" 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
Society
Think
Music
" 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
Think
Me
Family
" I think that peace is, in many ways, a precondition of joy. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Think
Ways
Peace