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" 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
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" People will ask, 'Are you famous?' And I always answer, 'My mother thinks so.' "
Yo-Yo Ma
Mother
You
People
" 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
Thought
Always
Time
" 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
" 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
Project
Interesting
Film
" One of the things I love about music is live performance. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Music
Live
Things
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" 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
" After reaching 50, I began to wonder what the root of life is. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Root
Wonder
After
" 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
Music
See
" 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
" 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
" 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
" I think that peace is, in many ways, a precondition of joy. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Think
Ways
Peace
" 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
" It's easy for me to care about Toronto, because Toronto is a community that cares about itself. It represents the world. It talks to itself, and because it does, it figures out that there must be a music garden as part of its existence. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Easy
World
Me
" 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
" My involvement in the political arena is to make sure there's a place for culture. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Place
Culture
Involvement
" 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
" 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
Fall
Faith
Go
" 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
" 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
You
Like
Sound
" I realized late in life that my twin passions are music and people. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Twin
People
Music
" We may be coming to a new golden age of instrument making. "
Yo-Yo Ma
Age
Coming
Golden
" 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
" 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