Yo-Yo Ma
Appearances
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
What was a kind of like a, you know, a uni world, a sort of hothouse atmosphere kind of world, opened up to sort of my, gosh, all this stuff.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Yes, of course. I'm rebelling against people doing things and not knowing why they're doing it. I'm rebelling against people saying this is the only way to go. I'm rebelling against people saying this is right and this is wrong without ever explaining why.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Absolutely. And my father had to check me out of the hospital because I was 15 years old.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
No. He gave up drinking because, you know, like guilt, shame, all of that stuff.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Yes, because he thought, you know, because my mother said, you know, see, you're a bad example for your son. It was horrible. Were you punished? Well, the shame and guilt was like, you know, if that's not punishment enough, it's like, you know, my father's only joy, you know, was a glass of wine. He gave that up. Yeah, right?
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Well, let's put it this way. I loved music. I think after I went and started playing chamber music with friends at the Alexander Schneider's sort of Christmas string seminar, which is now known as the String Seminar, 10 days around the holidays where you just are playing chamber music and meeting 15, 16, 17-year-olds. That's my version of fun.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
I wanted to join the Juilliard Quartet and play cello and be with friends. That was my goal. Did I want to be a cellist? Eh. Did I want to do that? Yes. But you know what really inspired me most was when I was nine, I read a book by Pablo Casals. And he said in his book that I am a human being first, I'm a musician second, and I'm a cellist third.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
And now, coming from my background and reading this from my hero, I thought, that man I like.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Well, it was the opposite. It was the reverse, right? But you're a cellist first? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the right order for me always, always, is you're a human being first, and then you are a member of that sector of musicians second. And last, I'm a cellist.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
That's a very interesting question. It implies that we all have a consistent one voice. And I dare say that all of us of a certain age have multiple voices.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
You think that's true? Yeah, I think it's literally true. Because we were talking earlier about what you, Terry, and I, Yo-Yo, try to do is to make sure that at every stage in life that we acknowledge that stage and not try and pretend we're another stage, except for me, I'm still living my childhood. But that's different. That's an exception. But I would say that this music...
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
This is a sonata by Schubert. When I was 10, I was mesmerized by Schubert. And one of the things about Schubert that was amazing to me, and I think it appealed to me as a 10-year-old, was that in the happiest moments, there's sadness. And in the saddest moments, there's a glimmer of light. And I think it's the gray, right? But it's not constant gray. And I think that's a lot of life.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
And I think as an immigrant, you're always aware of being able to be on the inside and the outside.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
It has that, you know, poignancy. It has that wistful quality. And, you know, you're yearning for something and it could be towards one way or another and whatever. But I can tell you something else that when I was 19, In college they had an orchestra and I was asked to learn a piece of music that at first I was terrified or didn't even like, but I was incredibly attracted to it.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
So this was sort of, in a way, going to the dark side. And it's a piece that was written... at the height of the Cold War, Shostakovich, social realism depicting literally that very thing in society. And it's funny how we get so naturally into certain music like that Schubert I loved as a 10, 12 year old. But for the Shostakovich, I wasn't born in the Soviet Union.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
I did eventually visit the Berlin Wall and saw all what people went through to cross the Berlin Wall with all the flowers placed every 50 yards for somebody who tried it and didn't make it. But it was through reading a book about Shostakovich, who I think devoted his life to advocating for the voices of people that were part of that system. And what is interesting is,
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Everybody knew in Russia, in the Soviet Union, knew what that music was about. And it's harder to censor notes than words. But the messages were absolutely clear. Once I understood that that was the kind of advocacy, it's no longer about my voice anymore. but it's about my advocacy for the voices of people that didn't have the voices anymore.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Playing at the National Cathedral is always a special thing because that's sort of like the national place for commemoration, for mourning, for celebration. And it's more than the Episcopal Church. It's a national place, right? And I think they did an incredible job of acknowledging an unbelievably complex situation.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
in Africa, moved to Spain, was banned in Spain, moved to France, moved to South America, all as a dance. And then taken by Bach in what was not yet Germany at that time that crossed all these boundaries, but a dance that started out that was danced by Bedouin women.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
And, you know, through music, you're crossing all those lines, six minutes of music, and somehow you can evoke the sense of place, of time, of just having been.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Well, Terry, the first thing I want to tell you is that the cello's name is Petunia.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
I don't need to play it. It's like, you know, my wife thinks I hate music because often she will have the radio on or something and I'll say, can you turn it off? And she says, you know, obviously you hate music. And I say, no, I don't hate music. But I actually, you know, it's like, or she thinks that when I'm...
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
I'm listening to a conversation and I'm bored, she'll say, oh yeah, you're thinking of fingerings and bowings. It's just like you're imagining you're doing that. Because part of thinking is you think with, you do analytical thinking, you do empathetic thinking, but you also do tactile thinking.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Yeah. And the reason it's named Petunia is because I was playing in Salt Lake City in Utah, probably about 25 years ago, and a high school student whose name I still remember as Brittany asked me, does your cello have a name? I said, no, but I'll play you a piece of music and if you can think of a name, maybe I'll keep it. And so I played a piece of music. She said, Petunia. I said, that's it.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Some of you may be working on your golf game when you're at a meeting or you're thinking of how you can do a better serve. I don't know, but I think we are much more than what we think we are at any moment.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Well, that was actually the Going Home from Dvorak, which is from his New World Symphony.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
It also turned into a spiritual Going Home. So it has a number of iterations.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Well, I mean, I think we are all more than who we think we are, right? Because there's always unexplored parts. And I think with music, with anything that's created, if you look deeply enough... into anything, I think you actually see the world. Simple Gifts, Shaker Song, then Aaron Copland turned into Appalachian Spring, suddenly had a different life.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
And we may know that song partly because of Appalachian Spring and then went back to saying, oh yeah, that's a Shaker Song, right? Amazing Grace. It's a song that's been spiritual adapted from actually not a very religious person who wrote this, but he was in a storm and he survived and then became very religious. And there's a long story to that. And of course, today,
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Amazing Grace has so many places where it is, you know, core music for many social human occasions.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Dvorak, had he not come to America, had he not met Harry Burleigh, who introduced him to spirituals, and Dvorak, upon hearing Harry Burleigh's voice and became friends with him, just showed him all of this music and said, you know, this African-American music, spirituals, is as great as any music I've ever heard. This is the soul of America.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
So Dvorak was hired by Mrs. Thurber to come to the United States to be the head of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City for a number of years. He stayed only about three years. And during this time, he taught. He taught Harry Burleigh. He taught many students. And he told the students what? He said to them, don't teach like me. Don't compose like me. Don't imitate me.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
But listen to what's around you. Listen to the music of immigrants. Listen to African-American music and the Native American music. He traveled to find all of this. He said, this is where you're going to find the soul of America. And his students taught their students that way, and they became George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Duke Ellington.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
I did it once in my 20s. I did it once in my 40s. I did it once in my 60s. So every 20 years or so, I figured I might get it better.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
I think, to me, that's been my experience of your approach over the last 40 years.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Thank you. No, seriously. Because I was going to ask you, how do you deal with burnout? How does anybody who does things for four decades... avoid the trap of saying, okay, I'm caught in a rut. How do you rejuvenate, regenerate, and constantly be curious and active and do your best? I try and forgive myself because I don't want to be neurotic.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
I also don't want to fall under the spell of what I call an industrial aesthetic, which is your way of saying perfection, right? What do we do in industry? You make a million copies of something with the least amount of error. So here's a million copies, maybe it's six out of a million bad, right? I can't play a million concerts and have six bum concerts.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
You know, that's an unreasonable thing to ask of a human being. What allows me to not be paralyzed is to just say, I'm doing my best. And if it doesn't work, you know, you know my intention is to do the best.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Well, it was written for cello alone, so there was no background or foreground. It had to be all ground, right?
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Sure. Well, I can play you one thing from Suzuki Book 5, which is... Which is great. Everybody who plays Suzuki Book Five will play this piece. But bourree is a dance, right? So you're thinking dance, and a dance, a particular dance with steps, and, you know, the dance master would create a dance every week for people to dance on the weekends. So people were really working hard at dances. So...
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
a kind of lightness to your step. It turns it into something that titillates someone else's imagination to say, oh yeah, I can dance to that. As Mark Morris Dance Group choreographed a whole suite to this music to dancers who then created a dance for this bourree. Does that make sense?
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Let's avoid that. I won't retune, but I'll play you this beginning. So this is the very first piece of music I learned as a four-year-old. piano plays may have heard this before. And as a four year old, I learned it. And what was interesting for a beginning cellist, if you look at this. I just use one finger and it's the same pattern twice over.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
is about patterns, the same or different. We are constantly oscillating between the same and different. Right? And so it was easy for a child to learn things that had patterns to it, and when it was different, it was interesting. Now, why is this beautiful? As a four-year-old, I learned it fairly easily. Kids absorb things as a sponge absorbs water really easily.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
After nine years old, you don't pick up languages anymore. Naturally, you actually start to analyze things, you use your mind, and it's a different process of assimilation. So by the time I got to my 20s or 30s, this piece became hard. Because how do I play it? And what I discovered and what made it so beautiful for me is that whereas it was hard to start, but if I thought of an image of water,
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
of a brook or a river. And if I thought that the piece started before I began, and I just joined the water. You know what it is about a river? It's never the same river, but you always call it the same river, but the water's never the same. So if I think of a water element, here's what it ends up sounding like.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Right? In a world where we can measure everything, or we think we can measure everything, how wonderful it is that you could have the poetry of music, or poetry, or music that actually makes you think you are touching infinity.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
And I'm 68. That means I've been trying to get this right for 64 years.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Now, what's interesting about two-year-olds and three-year-olds, they are the center of their world.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
And if you get a lot of attention, of course you want more attention. But I think... As I was growing up, my wife and I have friends that say, Yo-Yo, you and your wife, you aspire toward normalcy. Now, that's interesting because kids are really smart.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
They know no matter what you say, you go to a class, they figure out whatever hierarchy there is, who's smart, who's athletic, who does this, and who's a bully, and who's on a fast track. And they figure all of this out. And I think we all have this aspiration to both belong and to feel special.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
All of us. So I didn't feel that I was particularly special because I didn't play with a lot of friends as a young person. And I never thought I was that special. A lot of people paid attention to me and said, you're this and you're that. And I wasn't sure that that... meant anything or was true or whatever. But I was trying to figure things out. I was actually very confused. About what?
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
About everything. I'm an immigrant. I was born in Paris. My parents were Chinese. And guess what? When we moved from France to America, our French friends would say, pourquoi? Why you go to America? This is the greatest country in the world. And once we arrived in America, you know, like Americans, this is of course the greatest country in the world. You've arrived!
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
And my parents would say, well, you know, there's Chinese culture, you know, ancient culture, this is so great. And I was wondering, you know, then why are we in America? So I was very confused because people would say, choose, you must be one or the other, whatever. And I thought... Why? Why do I need to choose? Because I love croissant. Do I have to give up croissant for Wonder Bread?
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
I don't mind rice either, but I love potatoes too. Do we need to make a choice on everything?
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
Well, that's assuming that you're doing a comparative thing. I didn't particularly know what I was doing was good, bad, ugly, or whatever. I just did things. Now, yes, there's the part of me from... two, not one, but two tiger parents. You've all heard of tiger parents? You know, Asian household. And that, you know, I had to do, well, I had to listen to them. There's not much dialogue.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
It's a lot of monologue, right? You do this, you're a good boy, you can do this, and this is the right thing to do. And I had a father who was an incredibly gifted teacher.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
He started a children's orchestra in New York. And he was just a really brilliant teacher, but irascible. And I had a mother who was... who loved music, who was a singer, who actually loved to be moved by music. So I had both the head and heart sort of thing from either parent. And I think there was a lot of emphasis on trying to get things right consistently. So I had fantastic training.
Fresh Air
A Yo-Yo Ma Thanksgiving
I had fantastic ear training. But... Did I know why I was doing something or what it was about? I think it was after I went away to summer camp and especially to college where whatever I was doing and that I was passionate about was matched easily by my peer group being interested in their passions. And suddenly the world opened up.