Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma, 2013Ralph Daily [ CC BY SA 2.0] via Wikimedia 

The ancient Greeks said “Tell me who you admire and I’ll tell you who you are” (Harper). Charles Harper, in his essay “How we Choose Our Heroes,” argues that hero’s guide us and keep us from toppling into anarchy and chaos. In it, he emphasizes that heroes, no matter how famous or wealthy, use the attention they get to lead others to higher goals that benefit humanity. Heroes, by definition, are people who are idolized for their ability to lead humanity toward a brighter future with the defining traits that they have developed through their work.  However, with the rise of social media like youtube and facebook, we have come to believe that heroes are those who own more than us. We now mistake and wealth and fortune for heroism and the ability to change the world. While anyone can buy the title of a hero with enough fame and fortune, true heroes will always work towards a higher goal without any expectations of material gain. True heroes are people like nurses, counselors, or special education teachers who do not just simply work for paychecks. They work to improve our lives, even if society rarely rewards them for their hard work. While their professions all differ, they do have a few similar traits. They all have the ability to persevere and take risks, even if they have to resort to resisting the status quo. Because heroes are people who work without expecting much in return, they must be passionate and be willing to expend all their power for their cause. One such hero who has sacrificed much time and effort to further his cause is the famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma.  

Unlike most other musicians, Yo-Yo Ma was a cellist prodigy before he was even five-years-old. After moving to New York at the age of seven to further his studies, Ma quickly ascended the ranks of music. By the time he graduated from high school, he was being compared to the greatest cellists of his day. However, after the birth of his son, Ma realized how fleeting life was. A few years later, Ma visited the San tribe in Kenya. Despite still being hunter-gatherers in the 20th century, the tribe impressed Ma with their music and made him realize that all humans, no matter how primitive or advanced they were, could enjoy and play music, Because of these two events, Ma realized that there was far more he could do with his talent. He felt as if there was a call from somewhere for him to use his talent to enlighten the world, like how his teachers had taught him the skills he needed to succeed. As such, Ma set out to use his musical talent to teach others and connect people through different forms of music. Because his talent and passion for music helped educate and connect our diverse world, Yo-Yo Ma is a hero worthy of admiration who has succeeded in making the world more connected and educated.

 Yo-Yo Ma, unlike many other musicians, chose to use his talent to primarily educate others. Instead of using his talent to further his already well-established career, Ma instead chose to educate other musicians. After visiting one of Ma’s summer classes, journalist Jane Brown was amazed by Ma’s playing so she wrote about his teaching ability: “Ma wanted to help young cellists improve their playing, even though he did not have time to teach cello students regularly” (Brown 35). Additionally, Ma was also a passionate teacher who worked very hard and patiently to improve his students playing skills:  “…At master classes, Ma spends about half an hour with each student. He lets each play his or her entire piece without interruption and praises the positive aspects of the performance before offering suggestions to improve weaknesses.”(Brown 35). Despite Ma being extremely busy, he did the best to give his students the education possible such as giving them one on one time and critiquing their playing. Because Ma listened attentively to each student and gave back the best feedback that he could, Ma was serious about his endeavor and truly wanted to help his students achieve success. True heroes like Ma are those who use their talent and skills to help others like educating them so that they may have the skills to succeed in life. Rather than hire a few tutors with his large fortune, Ma persevered and worked extremely hard to personally give each of his students a 1-on-1 education so that they could learn from one of the most talented men in the field.  With so many young students educated to this degree, the budding musicians Ma taught will all surely spread their knowledge to others, thus making the world a bit more enlightened than before. Another time when Ma used his talent to help others was when he worked with fellow trumpeter, Wynton Marsalis, to create a series of educational video tapes to teach young children the basics of music: “Even though Ma was busy, he did not neglect music education. He continued to give master classes, and he even teamed up with trumpet player Wynton Marsalis to make a series of music-education videotapes. The four videotapes cover practicing, rhythm, musical forms, and jazz” (Whiting 65). While Ma’s schedule was packed, he did not forget the importance of education, no matter how basic it is. As such, he worked to create videos so that each of his viewers can experience learning from a master like him, even if it is through a television screen. Great heroes, like teachers, strive to help others no matter who they are so that they may become capable of reaching new heights and changing the world to fit their own dreams and goals. Even though most of Ma’s audience would not be his usual students, Ma still chose to teach them so that they too could learn from a great like him, not just the talented and well-off students that other musicians  taught. Because true heroes do everything they can to help as many people as possible, Ma definitely fits the definition of one. Thanks to Yo-Yo Ma’s work, many fortunate students have been able to learn from one of the best cellists and could go on to teach others. Ma empowered thousands of people across the world to become as great as well and to pick up his work if he can no longer do so. By giving people the chance to change the world for the better, Yo-Yo Ma is certainly a hero.

Yo-Yo Ma is also a hero because he is able to use his passion for music to bring and connect people with music.  After travelling around the world and visiting a San tribe, Ma realized how big the world is in terms of cultural diversity. He decided to found several endeavors to bring the world’s treasures to our attention. Ma created a band called the Silk Road to share the music of other cultures and help us appreciate them: “ The Silk Road Project was founded in 1998, but the first major concert season was launched in 2001 with performances, festivals, and educational programs scheduled across North America, Europe, and Asia” (Chippendale 11). However, Ma’s goal was not to simply drive up ticket sales by playing exotic music. Rather, it was to showcase the diversity of our world and its cultural beauty. By working passionately to create performance festivals and educational programs, Ma managed to connect people from all around the world. Because Ma brought so many different people together, he exposed his audience members to other musical genres and got them to interact, even if some of his audience may have had grievances towards new and unfamiliar cultures.  By connecting strangers who may have had ill feelings towards one another, Ma has succeeded in making our world more peaceful and understanding than before. Had Ma not done this, our world would be a far more violent and intolerant place than today's world. Another example is when he took on the task of translating an infamous extremely difficult violin piece called the “24 Caprices” for cello and performing it: “I made myself do them for some perverse reason,’ said Ma, ’one week before I was to play them, I panicked. I started practicing four hours a day and developed a new muscle on my hand. When I got to the concert I almost had to be pushed out on stage. But I did it - for which I’m now grateful. Everything else was easy compared to that” (Xia). Yo-Yo Ma’s intense desire to translate the song shows that he has enormous musical passion.  Instead of giving up on the song or failing his audience's expectations, Ma doubled down and tried even harder to translate the songs and succeeded. A true hero is a person who uses all his traits to help the world, such as showing its own hidden treasures in new ways. Ma embodies this trait thanks to his work translating the 24 caprices. He is willing to use all his passion to share the different cultural pieces of the world with people around the globe and interconnecting the world so that is more compassionate and unified than in the past. Since music is such a universal language, it allows people from anywhere to understand each other and appreciate the beauty and diversity of our huge planet. Through his use of music and programs to bring people together, Ma has been able to interconnect our world and make it better than he found it. As such, he is a hero.

While Yo-Yo Ma is an extremely talented cellist, he could have easily just have focused on his career and do nothing but perform all his life. However, Ma understood that there was a reason for him to be gifted with so much talent and willingly chose to use his talent to enlighten the world like how he thought he was meant to. Throughout his life, Ma has demonstrated his ability to change the world for good. He has used his talent to educate thousands and make our world more peaceful and understanding than it was before. Because of the way that he uses his talent and passion, he is definitely a hero in the eyes of many people. He has given many people the opportunity to shape the world in their image and remove distrust and fear of others from the minds of many. While Yo-Yo Ma was indeed a very talented cellist, he would remain as just that, a cellist. By normal logic, Yo-Yo Ma shouldn’t have been able to change the world. However, by using his attributes to accomplish so many things, he was able to show people like me that even people as unremarkle as a cellist could leave an impact on the world. He has shown many that as long as we use all our efforts to leave the world a better place than we found it, we can all become a hero like him.