"I'm not likely to forget where I've been and what I've done and learned. I think it's just as important to play new instruments as to play new pieces. The old ones are getting scarcer and the new ones more and more wonderful"
About this Quote
Yo-Yo Ma is arguing for a kind of artistic citizenship: memory without museum-glass nostalgia, innovation without amnesia. The opening line plants him firmly in experience - not as a résumé flex, but as a guardrail against the shallow newness our culture loves to reward. He’s saying his past is ballast, not baggage. That matters coming from a musician whose career could easily calcify into “definitive recordings” and greatest-hits touring. Instead, he frames growth as obligation.
The most telling move is the pivot from “new pieces” to “new instruments.” In classical music, repertoire is the safe, prestige-bearing frontier: program a contemporary composer, commission something, check the “modern” box. Ma suggests that’s not enough. Changing instruments changes the body: the touch, the breath, the ergonomics, the sound itself. It’s a deeper kind of humility, a willingness to become a beginner again and risk sounding less than masterful. Subtext: virtuosity can become a cage; curiosity is the escape hatch.
Then the quiet ecological note: “The old ones are getting scarcer.” This isn’t just about antique Stradivaris or rare woods; it’s about access and gatekeeping. If the best tools become luxury artifacts, the art form narrows. His final phrase - “more and more wonderful” - reads like optimism with teeth: technology, craft, and global musical exchange aren’t threats to tradition; they’re the next tradition being built in real time.
The most telling move is the pivot from “new pieces” to “new instruments.” In classical music, repertoire is the safe, prestige-bearing frontier: program a contemporary composer, commission something, check the “modern” box. Ma suggests that’s not enough. Changing instruments changes the body: the touch, the breath, the ergonomics, the sound itself. It’s a deeper kind of humility, a willingness to become a beginner again and risk sounding less than masterful. Subtext: virtuosity can become a cage; curiosity is the escape hatch.
Then the quiet ecological note: “The old ones are getting scarcer.” This isn’t just about antique Stradivaris or rare woods; it’s about access and gatekeeping. If the best tools become luxury artifacts, the art form narrows. His final phrase - “more and more wonderful” - reads like optimism with teeth: technology, craft, and global musical exchange aren’t threats to tradition; they’re the next tradition being built in real time.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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