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Yo-Yo Ma On Intonation, Practice,

and the Role of Music in Our Lives


The 60-year-old cellist is on a magic cello ride, and still striving for
perfection
By Martin Steinberg posted November 2015

A cellist walks on a beach and picks up a bottle. A genie pops out and says, I give you two wishes.
The cellist says: Wow, Id like to have world peace.
The genie thinks for a second and says,
Thats too hard! Whats your second wish?
The cellist says, Well, Im turning 60 and I want to play in tune.
The genie thinks for a second and says, What was your first wish again?

Musicians, take heart. That joke was told by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma during an
interview ahead of his 60th birthday on Oct. 7. After 55 years of playing,
yes, even Yo-Yo Ma needs to practice.
What all string players have in common is that if we dont play for awhile,
we actually start from ground zero, Ma says. Ma was four when he started
the cello.
At seven, he was performing with his big sister for an audience that
included two US presidents. Now nearing his milestone birthday, hes ever
youthful, always learning, asking questions, constantly building bridges.
And striving for perfection.
Despite all his achievementsmore than 100 CDs, 18 Grammy Awards,
and other honors, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the
National Medal of Artshes going full tilt toward more accomplishments.

In the weeks before his birthday, Mas agenda was packed. At Tanglewood,
his scheduled performances included all three Brahms trios with Emanuel
Ax and Leonidas Kavakos and the six Beethoven cello sonatas with Ax.
That was followed by a six-country European tour with Andris Nelsons and
the Boston Symphony, featuring Strauss Don Quixote in advance of next
years 400th anniversary of Cervantes death. At the London Proms, he
was scheduled to play all six Bach Cello Suites in one night. In September,
his new album, Songs from the Arc of Life (Sony Masterworks), with long-time
accompanist Kathryn Stott on piano, was to be released, as was a
documentary focusing on musicians in his Silk Road Ensemblea
collective of musicians, composers, visual artists, and more that explores
Eurasian culture.
The journey began in 1955 in Paris, where Ma was born to immigrant
Chinese musician parents. His sister, Yeou-Cheng Maa violinist, pianist,
medical doctor, and childrens orchestra administratorremembers that
their father started Yo-Yo on the violin at age two and a half, then piano, but
he didnt like them.
He didnt want to do something that I already did because he could see
that I already knew how to play, Yeou-Cheng Ma says. He was a very
smart kid, very intuitive . . . and a charmer, even at a young age.
So he didnt play any instrument for the next year and a half, during which
time the family moved to New York. One day, he saw a newsreel about a
New Orleans jazz band and noticed the double bass. He was thrilled, his
sister recalls. He said, That one! The big one! Thats what I want! But
since he was so little, he was given the second-biggest one, a cello. Their
father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, taught him the Bach Suites, measure by measure. At
age seven, Yo-Yo and Yeou-Cheng performed Brevals Concertino No. 3 at
a fundraiser for the Kennedy Center. The audience included President John
F. Kennedy and former President Dwight Eisenhower.
Ma went on the study with Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School, but
dropped out and entered Harvard at age 16, majoring in the history of
science. Since then, he has been on a magic cello ride around the world,
figuratively and literally. As he approaches the start of his seventh decade,
Ma says he is swimming and walking, watching what he eats, and
assessing his goalsWhats worth really, really trying hard for?
About the genie joke. You dont have intonation problems. What are you talking about?

Mark Salzman wrote this wonderful book about a cellist ( The Soloist) . . .
seeking perfection. Of course, you cannot achieve perfection and you kind
of get paralyzed, so you have to find equilibrium between the possible
whats realistic and what is ideal.
What is your proudest accomplishment?

Family. I love my family. Theyre great people, and Im just so, so lucky to
have them. Thats by far.
In your career?

To have been part of these childrens television shows Mister Rogers


Neighborhood, Sesame Street, [and] Arthur, because what happens when you go
on a childs show is that theyre not a guest in my world, but Im the guest in
their world. If they accept you, its permanent, its theirs. And that is so
important because to me that is the basis of all cultural understanding, or
any artistic understanding, which is you have to stand on the inside. So if
youre accepted into a childs world, thats the greatest gift of all.
Ive had the great luxury of meeting kids who saw [me] many years ago,
and I see them as teenagers, 20 year olds, 30 year olds, and they can tell
me, This did this to me at that time and therefore I did this at that time.
And thats incredibly rewarding.
I didnt expect that answer. You never fail to surprise.

I think that, and probably being part of building the Music Garden in Toronto
[as part of Mas Inspired by Bach series]. Theres a music garden that
Julie Moir Messervy based on the First Bach Suite. Because thats another
symbol of what culture means to me . . . . Culture is kind of like a living
seed and it can grow in places that are not fertile . . . . Gardens are not just
existent in nature, but somehow theres a human element of tending it,
caring for, of enriching, of selecting.
And then, of course, the garden is there to be enjoyed, to be used, to be
part of peoples lives in different times and seasons. To me, it is the ultimate
metaphor for culture. And for culture, I would say, what we tend in our
human garden is probably things like the arts, the sciences, and
philosophy.
Ive been thinking of these things because Ive always wondered, what is
music for? And lately, a lot of musicians are interested in music and health.
What is it that actually becomes a passion? Is it the sound, is it the activity,
is it what state of mind you get to, where you are actually in the activity of

teaching music, of playing music and joining with others into creating
music? What part of the brain does it use? How does it affect your state of
mind? How does it affect the other things? And so whether youre a child or
an adult [or] a retired person, what do these things do to your brain?
And what are educational systems based on? Where did our high school
subjects come from? Our studies are from 1910, so [do] we need to reboot
that? How does art fit into that, how does that fit into arts funding and
science funding? What are we educating our children for? Is it a
transactional thing? Do you pay that money in order to get better jobs or is
there something about education that is different?
I think those are serious questions that the nations considering. Not just
this nation but every nation. Oh, were falling behind in the sciences! Oh,
we have to do STEM [science, technology, engineering, and mathematics]!
But wait a minute? Do we have common philosophy? Is it e pluribus unum,
which is on every quarter, or is it all for one and one for all? Or is it just for
me? Because is whats good for me good for everybody?
So these are the questions and when we think about them it affects the
sounds that we make. And I think for Strings, and the edition of Strings that you
are writing for, I think thats somethingyes, strings are like vocal cords
and how we use our voice, whether we use it to alert, warn, soothe, pacify,
communicate, what are we communicating, who are we communicating to,
whats the purpose of the communication? Is it to join, is it to separate, is it
to point to something larger, is it to something in the micro world, in the
macro world?
I think those are incredibly interesting things that I would like to continue to
consider after turning 60, because by many standards, Im old. Im part of
AARP [laughing] and I can get a discount on the bus. So is my contribution
less now that Im old, or what is it that I can contribute for certain?
Whatever I do is becoming less interesting than what other people do . . . .
Im less at the center of my world than when I was 20, when I was trying to
say: I can do this, I want to do this.
This seems to be fodder for a very important book on society.

No, just musings of a middle-aged person going through what everybody


goes through. Id like to be able to think about these things, but also be
able to try and play in tune. But while Im playing in tune, not to obsess over

intonation, but the obsession of trying to play in tune because transcending


technique allows me then to communicate the content.
Do you still practice a lot?

I actually enjoy practicing more and more . . . as a child, I practiced


because I had to practice and you didnt want to mess up. But thats not a
good thing. You want to please your teacher, you want to please your
parents, you want to please your peers. And now I practice because Ive
experienced so much love that you practice out of loving a phrase, loving
motivic change, loving a structure or harmony change or the way a sound
can get to something.
I think that part of practicing is great because it unites what you want to do
in engineering, as in technically, where do you put your arms and your
fingers and your bodymicro movementswith that desire and the feeling
of what it needs to be. Thats a wonderful process because its a constant
of going toward something bigger than the notes and yourself, and very
lovingly so.
Whenever I catch myself playing something that sounds mechanical but
dead, its because either Im not paying attention or its something difficult
that I havent solved. Sort of like a physicality issue that, you know, sudden
tension, so I freeze up and become more internalized, so I cant love it.
Loving something implies going outside yourself and fear means retreating
into yourself. Im scared. Well, go back into yourself. Thats a metaphor for
societal fears when a whole people are scared of something that they cant
control and sort of hits them, what do they do? It becomes more tight, they
will make much, much more conservative decisions. The counteracting of
that is culture. Hey, wait a minute, I want to know what that fear is. Im
going to research that fear. What exactly is that fear? Is it exactly what I
think it is? Is that what I feel or can I analyze it? Whats the truth behind the
fear? So you kind of have to look at thatthats a key in performance.
When someone performs, you want that person to be open and not to have
any barriers. Any barriers that are set up between the performer and the
audience actually impedes the communication of what needs to be.
I often tell people the world needs more Yo-Yo Mas, and this is a perfect example. Just these
ideas alone, if people could hear them, everything thats headed in the wrong direction can
turn around.

I dont know. Were so invested in thinking, in trying not to screw up.


Basically, I have your back. We dont want to make obvious mistakes, so
we cover up. But actually, to really create trust, you have to trust that its
OK to make a mistake, and youre not going to be punished for it. We
acknowledge and do better the next time. Its one of the hardest things to
do because we dont want to look like fools. [ New York Times writer] David
Brooks has been talking lately about what we work for: our CVs or do we
work for our eulogies? There are different things that you work for,
curriculum vitae, and people talk about a person differently in the eulogy.
There you talk more about characterthis and thatand so which one are
we working for? Thats a kind of philosophical question, isnt it? That comes
with a philosophical part of culture. What are we as a society working
toward? So what are we working for in a community, what are we working
for in a political party, what are we working for in classical music?
Youre about to perform the Elgar Concerto, and have done so many times. How much time
must you devote to it at this point?

The thing is, you know, there is engineering, neuromuscular finger work,
and theres head work. So for anybody whos really really passionate,
basically its whatever it takes and its also head work. Its kind of all the
time. Its sort of like youre downloading a program in your computer, its in
your brain. When I go on to do the Elgar, I start thinking about it, on and off,
all the time. So Im thinking, Huh, how about trying it this way? So youre
always in some ways trying to hear something a certain way, solving a
problem a certain way, and rethinking it and thinking theres a better way to
build this mousetrap. So you want to align your physical self and your
mental self into the state of mind that is required of that piece.
Do you ever envision your life after cello?

Like aprs-ski, hot chocolate by the fireplace, with pizza?


Youre not going to lose any weight like that.

Youre right. Maybe a cup of herbal tea and some nuts. Well, Ive always
been interested in people and culture and arts and sciences and
philosophy and typology, so I think Im always going to be thinking about it,
and the older I get, the more Ill get interested in young people because
thats another form of culture.
The young peoples worldwe may occupy the same space, but they will
think differently and have many different reasons to do what they do and

Im deeply curious about that. I like to think of it in K through 12 and beyond


and how people learnwhy they learnand so I will always be thinking
about these things.
---

What Yo-Yo Ma Plays: Yo-Yo Mas principal instrument is a Montagnana cello built in 1733. At the frigid 2009 inauguration of
President Barack Obama, Ma performed outdoors on a modern Luis and Clark carbon-fiber cello. He uses a circa 1820 Tourte bow.

What Yo-Yo Ma Plays

Yo-Yo Mas principal instrument is a Montagnana cello built in 1733. At the


frigid 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama, Ma performed
outdoors on a modern Luis and Clark carbon-fiber cello. He uses a circa
1820 Tourte bow.
--Growing up with Yo-Yo

What was it like growing up in the Ma family? I asked Mas sister, Dr. YeouCheng Ma, about the guidance her father, musicologist-conductor HiaoTsiun Ma, brought to the family. My father was very strict. He was also a
very wise person, she says. I tried to quit practicing because it gets
tedious after a while. So I said, You know, Im not going to practice today. I
practiced yesterday. He said OK. I was very surprised because I thought
he was going to yell and scream and carry on. And then came dinner time
and Im hungry. He goes, But, oh, you ate yesterday.
And what does she think of her brothers impact on music?
He has this vision to bring people together, aside from his own playing. I
remember when he was very young and I was heading toward taking
medicine, she says.
He asked me, Well, should I be a doctor, too? I said, Oh no! Your music
is so amazing that when you play you will move mountains, you will affect
the universe. He was like maybe ten, 11. And it proved to be true, even
though he was very young. He went beyond what anybody could think.
-The Big Gig with Yo-Yo

Pipa player Wu Man was a music student in China in the early 1980s when
20-something cellist Yo-Yo Ma went there to perform.
She was fortunate enough to have attended his first concert in his parents
native land. That was [a] big moment, she says. For Chinese, especially
for young musicians, we are all looking up [to] him. We know hes Asian,
were proud, you knowhes a hero for us.
More than ten years later, she had moved to the United States, and in the
late 1990s, she got the gig of a lifetimeto play Bright Shengs Three
Songs for Pipa and Cello with Ma at the White House during a state dinner
hosted by President Bill Clinton for Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji. I was so
nervous, she recalls. Bright Shengs music is not that easy.
And there was the issue of balancing the cello with the four-string pipa, a
Chinese instrument. The color is so different, she says.
The rehearsal was basically to figure out how we can make it sound good
together.
Yo-Yo was very, very nice. He changed the way he bowed so it came out
[a] different sound to match my instrument.

Later, Ma recruited her to join his embryonic Silk Road Project, a unique
cultural exchange featuring music from the countries along the ancient
trade route connecting Europe and China.
The project was supposed to last five years. Fifteen years later, its still
going strong, and Wu Man is still performing with the ensemble.

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