As of right now, I am listening to Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major - which Yo Yo Ma played but I'm not sure if it was in G major or not. And I'm just gonna call him Yoyo cause it's too much type.
A lot of people thought this was actually going to be a concert, which would have also been nice, but this celebrity forum kind of 'concert' was, I think, equally as interesting.
Soooo... honestly, I didn't know much about Yo Yo Ma. I just know he's like the world's most famous cellist (I now know it's "cellist", not "cello-ist"). I think I confused him with some other famous Chinese pianist or something... with really messy hair and really spazzy. But Yo Yo Ma actually looked quite sophisticated, and a lot younger than his age. I think I would say that he aged very well haha.
Anyways, while waiting for forum to begin (I arrived about 40 minutes before Yoyo was supposed to show up), I was reading Pride and Prejudice. I'm still not accustomed to their English, but some of the things in the story that are real interesting I can still pick up and understand. And this lady sitting next to me was just staring off into space. And at this point in time I thought to myself that seriously, the best way to kill time while waiting for such things as this is to READ. There are so many good books and stories out there, I really think I need to get rid of my dislike of reading. Or it really depends on what I'm reading. I know Pride and Prejudice is a lovely romance story - sooo I guess I'm real into it even though like 50% I don't know what the characters are talking about. Personally, I'd rather stare into paper than stare into an LCD screen, at least. And it's better for my eyes. I HAVE 15-20 vision so I should keep it that way, no? ;]
Soo!! Yoyo Ma shows up while the host/founder person talks about these Celebrity Forum series, and how Tony Blair is the next one to come to the Flint Center! I'm kind of worried of such a huge political figure coming here though... but then again it's Cupertino... but then again, you'll never know what can happen.
So Yoyo Ma says hi and stuff. And he's a pretty sarcastic guy haha which is humorous I guess - doesn't let people get bored of him. In the middle of talking someone in the audience sneezed - and he even paused talking to say "Bless you!" haha cool guy.
And so he plays the beginning of Bach's Cello Suite for us, a few minutes or so. But before he plays it, he asks us to remember what we think of while he's playing it. Afterwards, he asks the audience of what came up in their mind. People shouted out Light/(Life?), a river current, butterflies, etc... I personally thought of passing by like a prairie field or some kind of wheat field really fast during the daytime, and the picture in my mind was really pretty ^___^.
So he told us that one of the things that he thinks music is, is ideas. It comes from inside someone's mind, and into another person's mind. It makes people think up of certain things/images/ideas, and listeners can perceive it any way they want - usually it's rather serene or even meaningful.
But then he asked an interesting question. What makes certain songs suitable for weddings and parties, but also suitable for funerals? Because there are such songs, as he as been requested to play such songs. I don't really remember his answer for that but yeah. This is going to linger in my head for a while. All I remember is certain kind of beats... and also being in major/minor is important as well.
Ohyeah and he talked about his life. He is a French citizen!! His father was a musician and his mother was also something music-related, and he has an sister four years older than him. He played the violin up until he was four and then switched to the cello. When he was seven, his family moved to New York, and had enough financial resources to get him to know some very well-known musicians. He got to perform in front of JFK, Eisenhower, Danny K(?? whoever that is) when he was very little. Aaand so he really got into music in his later life, got married, had children, and I guess is still continuing his life of traveling around the world and playing music for the masses.
He told us he had a lot of problems balancing his job and his family. He really wanted to stay with his family, but at the same time, the only way for him to make a living was to continually travel, and his family was always very supportive, so he feels very blessed for that... but then again kind of sad because it seems like he feels guilty for missing a lot out of his childrens' lives.
But then it just comes to show that someone can do what they want, still have love for a family, AND travel! So it could be possible for me as well but we'll see hehe because I don't really want a family .___. I honestly don't mind being single for the rest of my life as long as I have God, friends, and music :] But maybe I'll end up as that "Eat, Pray, Love" lady and unexpectedly meet someone who will turn everything around 180 degrees so we'll see what God has in store for me :P I honestly don't think I was made to fall in love with any guy though.
So having children, he still did have SOME time to spend with them - and Yoyo was invited onto Fred Roger's show and Sesame Street. He looked extremely dorky though -____-... and Fred Rogers gave him the advice that sometimes when you're with children, it's better to go into their world rather than have them come into yours - because I guess the imagination you experience will be indescribable. So I'm gonna try to do something with the AWANA kids tomorrow.. hopefully get how their minds work haha I don't knowww.
Okay now I'm just like rambling now I don't get the point of this -_____-.
I guess I really, really respect Yo Yo Ma. This could be one of those 'musical highs' I'm getting, but I really want to refine my piano skills. Though I wish I could get better at violin and wish I had never quit learning such a beautiful-sounding string instrument, piano is honestly the musical instrument for me, I guess. I don't have a favourite instrument necessarily, buuuut to improve my piano seems the most reasonable. But then again sometimes following human reason is pathetic so I don't know haha. Honestly though, I have so much more resources to improving piano than anything so I'm gonna take it slow and start with improving my piano first.
And in the end of the forum when Yo Yo Ma played the rest of the Cello Suite, there were times the music was so beautiful I just felt like crying. And I kept thinking there's no way that there's no such thing as spiritual presence. And what is that spiritual presence? GOD, of course hehe. I just feel like playing this kind of music is a way of calling out to God, to pray without words - something that I've seen in my piano teacher's classroom hehe.
And I don't know. I like this kind of feeling - feeling sophisticated, appreciating classical music, dressing nice, standing and sitting upright, reading classic literature, feeling clean, feeling tidy. Haha I sound likeeeeeee an old granny. But screw labels :P if I feel happy this way then I'm going to chase after this kind of happiness.
Lately I've been real bored and disappointed in main stream music. Honestly, when I got back into main stream music earlier last year it wasn't that bad. But now it's just blechhh it's so empty and yucky. So now instead of constantly trying to find new main stream songs to listen to I think I might go find some nice classical music for a change :] OR if you find some nice popular songs that have a pretty large time amount of strings in them tell me! It's most likely that I'll like it haha like Sarah's boyband's song "All Time Low" hehe I've been listening to that song pretty much all day.
= = There's so much more things that I want to talk about but I really need to get some sleep. Not to brag or anything, but out of the friends I know, I think I'm the healthiest one. I get a very sufficient amount of sleep every single night, I eat extremely healthy, I refuse to eat one crumb of junk food, I eat at regular times of the day, I have begun to exercise on a regular basis, I drink lots of fluids - YET MY FACE is still demented-looking :[ And then there's my sister who like doesn't exercise at all (well she has dance class at school), she defintiely doesn't get enough sleep, and she is a pig and a couch potato - yet her face is completely fine.
Stupid hormones.
STUPID HORMONES.
But yeee. Yo Yo Ma is really cool. He is real curious about the meaning of life. I've researched that he is a unitarian universalist - aaand those people don't seem to know quite much about God but I guess you can say they are close, compared to like athiests or whatever .___. He really cares about children, education, expressing yourself through music, and seems to just have this everlasting love for playing the Cello - that is probably his most admirable quality to me. To be so dedicated and devoted to something for that long is unbelievable to me, but then again, there are lots of other people like him - so I don't understand why like my piano teacher isn't a hero to me haha. I guess I haven't heard any of my music teacher's life stories yet, or what they think about. Maybe one day if I do, then my list of heroes will expand even more! And I guess a lot of what Yoyo thinks about I guess I think about time to time to, except that he's still constantly dedicated to answering his questions - through his own life. I guess I need to grow and get old and experience/see things in order to answer my questions about life and society and stuff. I actually I have answered one of my questions regarding society last year haha but I shall talk about that some other time....
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah. YO YO MA IS COOL HE WISHES US A HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Oooooooh. Yes. and on my LIST OF THINGS I WANT IN A BOYFRIEND, with Loving God as #1 and loving me as #2, I THINK #3 should be having a love/appreciation for music as much as or more than I do :] hehe.
OHYEAH! And I am definitely going to visit this place one day:
It's a garden designed after hearing Bach's Cello Suite and just the thought of such a concept is mind blowing. It's in the middle of Toronto :]
kay goodnight @ @..
No comments:
Post a Comment