Social Molecules with Yo Yo Ma


As told to Marc Maron:
YYM: Interesting that you say that. The other thing that I believe deeply is that um we're all capable of both the most vile acts in the world as well as the most trancendental ah, human achievements. Right? And it's not that there are good people and bad people. No we ARE the people. We contain that. And depending on how we happen to be born or constructed or nurtured these different aspects will come out. ... and so if there's anything I can do in music it's not to say I'm playing for good ppl or bad ppl or rich ppl or poor ppl or green ppl or purple ppl

Rather it's to actually celebrate the deepest of what, you know, humans, are. It's our humanity. You know.. Let's forget all the names and categories and whatever
When we're sitting in a room together we are one and with the vibrations in the air molecules that the sounds are making it's touching all of our skins and entering into us ...

It turns whatever is the other, into "we". ...And and, even for a moment, that's the reality of the moment. However you want to define music ... all of music takes us into specific states of mind. It beats chemically produced drugs because it actually the state of mind is produced by human biochemicals that we manufactured ourselves. That's our own substance that we are creating for ourselves.


Maron got Yo Yo Ma on this tangent by asking how he remains "apolitical" (around the 55:00 mark):
MM: ...You take that impulse to any type of form that you do like whether it's bluegrass, or tango or anything else.

YYM: That's right.

MM: And and what you're sharing and what I meant by apolitical is that you can travel anywhere and be this respected vessel of this music and this meaning. Like you could perform maybe for people that are vile and awful people, and still be enjoyed.



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Further Reading and Listening:

Yo-Yo Ma   wtfpod.com/podcast  🎙️




This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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