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" 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
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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
Innovation
Musicians
Together
" 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
" 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. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Want
View
Back
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
Always
Music
Over
" You know, you can have someone who's the very best at something, but if there's not that kind of chemistry, collaborating is not going to amount to anything. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Chemistry
Know
Someone
" 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
People
Music
Great
" I think anybody who goes away finds you appreciate home more when you return. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Appreciate
You
Think
" 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
Think
" 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
Great
Teacher
Him
" 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
" 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
You
Music
Communication
" 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'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
" My involvement in the political arena is to make sure there's a place for culture. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Place
Culture
Involvement
" People will ask, 'Are you famous?' And I always answer, 'My mother thinks so.' "
Yo-Yo Ma
Mother
You
People
" My job as a performer is to make sure that whatever happens in a performance lives in somebody else, that it's memorable... If you forget tomorrow what you heard yesterday, there's really not much point in you having been there - or me, for that matter. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Performance
Job
Me
" 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
Show
Different
Things
" Music is powered by ideas. If you don't have clarity of ideas, you're just communicating sheer sound. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Just
Sound
You
" One of the things I love about music is live performance. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Music
Live
Things
" We may be coming to a new golden age of instrument making. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Age
Coming
Golden
" 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
" There's a part of me that's always charging ahead. I'm the curious kid, always going to the edge. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Ahead
Kid
Me
" 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
" Good things happen when you meet strangers. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Good Things
Good
You
" After reaching 50, I began to wonder what the root of life is. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Root
Wonder
After
" I think one of the great things about being a musician is that you never stop learning. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Think
Never
Learning
" 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
Connections
Memory
Brain