#cello gang

[memisntp]

My teacher told me I keep my bow too close to the fingerboard, which results in a crunchy sound :(

I’ll work on it!

[slowdeathbyetudes]

if you are a cellist who has not held a viola/violin like a cello and played it, are you really a cellist?

[kharimateen]

These children play instruments made out of garbage. And they sound fantastic.

Cateura, Paraguay is a town essentially built on top of a landfill. Garbage collectors browse the trash for sellable goods, and children are often at risk of getting involved with drugs and gangs. When orchestra director Szaran and music teacher Favio set up a music program for the kids of Cateura, they soon have more students than they have instruments.

That changed when Szaran and Favio were brought something they had never seen before: a violin made out of garbage. Today, there's an entire orchestra of assembled instruments, now called The Recycled Orchestra.

WATCH VIDEO

[kharimateen]

Cello Gang

[kharimateen]

Actually, music gave me the support when I needed it. I would never have gone to college unless I'd gotten a piano scholarship. And now I'm so glad I got to learn to play the cello, which is a different experience, you're flexing a different muscle, but it's beautiful because it is music.

Jamie Foxx

[kharimateen]

Yo-Yo Ma and the Mind Game of Music

Do you ever wonder why it was you and not someone else who became a great cellist? What sets you apart?

Let me just say that I have no idea. I’m an accident. I don’t think there’s a rhyme or reason and I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. Why do I get these chances? Is it because I play faster? No. It’s a whole series of circumstances — some I work for, some come from my parents, my teachers, the points that are catalytic, the move, going to college, meeting my wife and knowing my children. It’s a confluence.

- Yo-Yo Ma

I don’t know if a lot of people think of music as a vehicle for understanding human behavior.

I’ve come to think of music in a way that’s a little clearer now. I would say the sound part of it, what you hear, the measurable part of the sound, is equivalent to the tip of an iceberg, less than 10 percent of the whole mass. So what’s below the surface is actually what is the music, what’s above is just the sound. I think about what is behind Bob Dylan’s voice. What is infusing my Goat Rodeo Sessions band mate Chris Thile’s sound, what is going on in his brain when he plays the mandolin? You can analyze the music and replicate it but you’re not really getting to Chris Thile until you understand what his worldview is, what motivates him to be open to everything around him, to be obsessive about slight differences in the taste of coffee.

How often do you practice, and for how long?

Mastering music is more than learning technical skills. Practicing is about quality, not quantity. Some days I practice for hours; other days it will be just a few minutes. 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.

full interview

[kharimateen]

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