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
Music is powered by ideas. If you don't have clarity of ideas, you're just communicating sheer sound.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Music transforms from mere sound to meaningful expression through clarity of ideas.
In this quote, Yo-Yo Ma emphasizes the importance of having clear and thoughtful ideas as the foundation of music. Without this clarity, music lacks depth and intention, resulting in nothing more than random sounds rather than a coherent form of artistic expression that communicates emotions and messages effectively.
Themes
MusicIdeasExpressionClaritySound
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of creativity in education, one might use this quote to illustrate how ideas shape artistic endeavors.
More from Yo-Yo Ma
All quotes βThere'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
Not since the Lord himself showed his stuff to Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones had anyone brought such grace and skill to the reconstruction of animals from disarticulated skeletons. Charles R. Knight, most celebrated of artists in the reanimation of fossils, painted all the canonical figures of dinosaurs that fire our fear and imagination to this day.
Stephen Jay GouldRead
I think the only thing filmmakers can do is try to make good movies and make them as long as they allow us to keep making them. But at the end of the day, it is a business, and if audiences don't care, there's nothing we can do. It'll just go away, I guess.
Robert ZemeckisRead
The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers.
Samuel JohnsonRead
The best thing about being a writer is it gives you readers who understand your deepest feelings and fears.
Katherine PatersonRead
A movie camera is like having someone you have a crush on watching you from afar - you pretend it's not there.
Tom StoppardRead
I think the chance of finding beauty is higher if you don't work on it directly. Beauty in architecture is driven by practicality. This is what you learn from studying the old townscapes of the Swiss farmers.
Peter ZumthorRead