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 MaRead
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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
A great composition transcends its individual elements and creates a unified experience.
Yo-Yo Ma's quote suggests that a musical composition, much like any piece of art, is not merely an aggregation of its components but instead embodies a greater significance and emotional impact. It emphasizes the idea that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, inviting listeners to appreciate the interconnectedness and unity within the work, which can be perceived from multiple perspectives, similar to how a prism reveals different colors while remaining a singular object.
Themes
CompositionMusicArtUnityWholeness
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a music appreciation class to emphasize how various musical elements contribute to a whole.
More from Yo-Yo Ma
All quotes →There's a part of me that's always charging ahead. I'm the curious kid, always going to the edge.
Yo-Yo MaRead
I think that peace is, in many ways, a precondition of joy.
Yo-Yo MaRead
I think anybody who goes away finds you appreciate home more when you return.
Yo-Yo MaRead
When we enlarge our view of the world, we deepen our understanding of our own lives.
Yo-Yo MaRead
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 MaRead
Similar quotes
For me, the importance in learning about the dance is using it as a voice. It's not about a step, it's about a way to express oneself.
Savion GloverRead
I get so tired of people saying, 'Oh, you only make fantasy films and this and that', and I'm like, 'Well no, fantasy is reality', that's what Lewis Carroll showed in his work.
Tim BurtonRead
A woman artist could be one of those intuitive geniuses [who] have kept their childlike spirit and have added to it breadth of vision and experience.
Alfred StieglitzRead
I think it's very important for writers and artists generally to be witnesses to the world, and to be transparent. To let other people speak... to travel... to experience the world. And memorialize it.
Joyce Carol OatesRead
Because of 'World War Z' and 'The Walking Dead,' I can't pitch a modest little zombie film which is meant to be sociopolitical.
George A. RomeroRead
The experimental poetry thing is not my thing. It's a programme of the avant-garde: basically a refusal of the kind of poetry I write.
Seamus HeaneyRead