| When Strangers Meet: Yo Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble |
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| Culture | |
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1 April 2002 When strangers meet
The idea of researching music from different traditions is hardly new. It has been part of academic musicology for centuries. Record buyers are also tuned in to the attractions of 'world' or 'fusion' music, and it is a ripe, plump market. In fact, Yo Yo Ma has consistently crossed the boundaries of musical thinking, and created powerful artistic fusions through careful collaborations. Despite this, The Silk Road Project is strangely compelling. Its structure places great emphasis on education and experience in music. By making music together, the collected musicians draw closer to what they have in common. They are no longer strangers as they play. As listeners in concerts or to the CD we can enter this understanding. Getting closer With fifteen minutes to capture the essence of this brilliant project, I am armed with the quivver and arrows of research but feel keen just to chat instead. I remark that a musical meeting with forty artists from across the world is quite a feat of empathy on his part. He responds with The Little Prince: "You have to sit a little closer every day". But closer to what? Music or people? Sometimes music is a metaphor for living. We know from other areas of music making, like improvisation; music therapy; or dance music; that you can 'connect' with people through music in quite unique ways. So even though the Silk Road Project is rightly billed as a musical endeavour, it's hard not to make the link between musical and personal understanding. For the musicians who became the Silk Road Ensemble, this musical encounter was affected by the personal excitement of getting to know other people's music: "We were so anxious to go the other's way that we went overboard." Their focus on making the right music together allowed personal understanding to emerge in its own time. It's a negotiation, and just as in life, musical negotiations succeed when you find a middle ground. Re-find the middle ground
Similarly, for Ma the use of music and musicians throughout the world has had a common ethos: "Whether within religious traditions or secular society, music plays a common role. There may be different music, but the goal is the same." This idea of finding common ground must be powerful for a man born in France to Chinese parents then raised in the US. I wondered what his middle ground for the Silk Road musicians would be? Where would it come from? "Éfrom little things you build a sense of trust that turns into an ease of being. This is the basis of any form of group activity." This 'ease of being' is catchy, because it's not a metaphor anymore. The ease that comes between musicians who have found common ground is real. That music can provide true common ground between people is an ancient yet quite radical ideal. In modern terms it's pretty outmoded to think that we can find any universals which link human beings. We can't even prove that you're hearing the same sounds as me. Yet musicians persist. Ma says that this was always so: "Classical musicians were a tight groupÉthey had a common goal. This is an ideal." He believes that searching for something universal is natural to musicians, as music "is idea-related, but you can also embed things through it." How to get 'inside music'
Music sometimes is not a metaphor for living. It is a means. It can help us to 'dig deep' and discover...dare we say it...truths. Ma has said that "Music provides trigger points for relationships, if you can find them. If you don't, you remain outside. You can gather a lot of information that way, but you gain knowledge only by finding your way inside." The Silk Road Project is unique in its structure because the work was done "inside music". This means that the ensemble worked out their differences while they played, and learned about each other while they taught. It also had practical implications for their record company, as they didn't really know what they were going to record when they started the improvisation process. But surely you've got to be pretty good to learn, as did Ma, the Mongolian Horsehead Fiddle? This idealistic vision of finding common ground through music must be the preserve of only the best musicians? True. Kind of. Ma did search out the best, both in talent and intent. Their process is a model of what music can do. The challenge is: can they help us all sit a little bit closer? Read a review of When Strangers Meet, the first recording from Yo Yo Ma and the Sillk Road Ensemble. |
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A warm voice smiles out long-distance: "Hi, this is Yo Yo Ma speaking". Cross-legged on a London floor, I smile back and prepare to ponder the Silk Road Project. Since its inception three years back, Ma's work has grown from prompting research into various musical cultures, through musical commissions to a full programme of events, education and recording. The first fruits of this combined labour are now available on CD as the Silk Road Ensemble: When Strangers Meet.
Or, as Ma puts it, "re-find" a middle ground. There's evidence that the great diversity of instruments and styles within music today actually emanate from a limited range of prototypes. After all, there's only so much music you can make with what the Chinese categorised as Wood, Skin and Metal. The Silk Road is an elegant symbol of this because its trade links made it possible for instruments to travel between cultures. How else would you find a Chinese lute with Persian markings, for example?
But when I ask about the common vision of the Silk Road musicians, there is a pause. The goal becomes the work itself: "It's a work in progress. If you dig deep enough you will find the global elements."
