Paul Morigi/Getty Images for Ovation  When he reached middle age, Yo-Yo Ma said,Â "I realized that of all the things Iâm interested in, the thing Iâm most interested in is figuring out what makes people tick."  Yo-Yo Ma began playing the cello at the age of 4. Now 57, he has received numerous Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 1998 Mr. Ma founded the Silk Road Project, a nonprofit organization that brings together musicians from around the world. Last month, Sony Masterworks released his Silk Road Ensembleâs âPlaylist Without Bordersâ CD and âLive From Tanglewoodâ concert DVD. Mr. Ma recently called from his home in Cambridge, Mass. A condensed and edited version of our conversation follows:  Do you ever wonder why it was you and not someone else who became a great cellist? What sets you apart?  Let me just say that I have no idea. Iâm an accident. I donât think thereâs a rhyme or reason and I have spent a lot of time thinking about it. Why do I get these chances? Is it because I play faster? No. Itâs a whole series of circumstances â some I work for, some come from my parents, my teachers, the points that are catalytic, the move, going to college, meeting my wife and knowing my children. Itâs a confluence.  Earlier this year at the Aspen Ideas Festival you said it wasnât until you turned 49 that you thought being a musician was cool. What did you mean by that?  Since I always played, as far as I can remember, I never said, âThis is what I want to do.â And I think I always wondered: âGee, could I have been this? Could I have done that? What would have happened if â¦?â What came up at age 49 is I realized that of all the things Iâm interested in, the thing Iâm most interested in is figuring out what makes people tick, why people think the way they do, why they act the way they do. And I realized that music is such a great way to investigate why people do what they do.  I donât know if a lot of people think of music as a vehicle for understanding human behavior.  Iâve come to think of music in a way thatâs a little clearer now. I would say the sound part of it, what you hear, the measurable part of the sound, is equivalent to the tip of an iceberg, less than 10 percent of the whole mass. So whatâs below the surface is actually what is the music, whatâs above is just the sound. I think about what is behind Bob Dylanâs voice. What is infusing my Goat Rodeo Sessions band mate Chris Thileâs sound, what is going on in his brain when he plays the mandolin? You can analyze the music and replicate it but youâre not really getting to Chris Thile until you understand what his worldview is, what motivates him to be open to everything around him, to be obsessive about slight differences in the taste of coffee.  How often to you practice, and for how long?  Mastering music is more than learning technical skills. Practicing is about quality, not quantity. Some days I practice for hours; other days it will be just a few minutes. Practicing is not only playing your instrument, either by yourself or rehearsing with others â it also includes imagining yourself practicing. Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining the task or actually doing it.  Have you experienced any of the physical problems that often plague musicians, like tendinitis or back pain?  I think all musicians have at one time or another experienced one physical problem or another. I have had tendinitis a couple of times, so I try to be really careful. It takes patience and persistence to overcome injury. Musicians often forget they are athletes and that itâs important to stretch before and after practicing or performing.  Youâve spoken about the perils of the child prodigy syndrome, saying that what you do when youâre young creates your emotional bank account and that youâll be drawing from it the rest of your life, so be sure the stuff you put in there counts.  I think when I was growing up I was dealing with a number of realities. The primary one involved being an immigrant. I moved from France to the United States when I was 7, and I had Chinese parents, which meant that I had three sets of divergent points of view broadcasting in my ears. It was very confusing. I needed to use my imagination to fill the gaps.  Do you feel that, because you trained so rigorously throughout your youth, you missed out on other important parts of life?  I always feel I miss out on things. Thatâs part of living. And the idea that youâre missing out on things can be used as fuel for developing what I call a disciplined imagination. I would be a terrible musician if I couldnât put myself in the mind of a composer who lived in a different time, a different place. I would be the worst musician if I canât somehow project my imagination into someone elseâs mind. I often say that to be a classical musician is to be a forensic cultural analyst.  Twenty-five years ago could you have imagined that you would win a Grammy for best folk album?  Probably not. But I donât like to think in categories. To really learn you have to take away the categories. And maybe part of growing older is Iâm slightly more self-aware, in the sense that I know some things that Iâm good at and other things Iâm not really good at, and I can accept that.  What are you not good at?  Iâm not good at systems. Iâm not great but Iâve become better at process. I think in shapes and in movement and images much more than in sound. Iâm not an instrument freak.  What would you like to accomplish that you havenât yet?  Oh, boy. Iâm interested in pushing for the role of culture to have an equal place at the table of politics and economics. Is that an achievable goal? I donât even know whether you can measure that. I think we would have a much happier, more fruitful and productive society if that were true.  Your role as an arts and culture advocate seems to be growing. Is it as much a part of your dayâs work and lifeâs work as playing the cello?  Joan Anderman, a former music critic for The Boston Globe, writes a blog, middlemojo.com, that explores, among other things, how artists change and adapt as they age.  More Creative Mid-Life profiles can be found here.  Booming: Living Through the Middle Ages offers news and commentary about baby boomers, anchored by Michael Winerip. You can follow Booming via RSS here or visit nytimes.com/booming. You can reach us by e-mail at booming@nytimes.com.  This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:  An earlier version of this article misstated the label that released the Silk Road Ensembleâs new CD, âA Playlist Without Borders.âÂ It is Sony Masterworks, not Sony Classical.
From child prodigy to genre-crossing star, the cellist Yo-Yo Ma talks about a life of creating music and the tradeoffs that come with it.