The more you love music …

One of my favorite quotes is, “The more you love music, the more music you love.”

A friend recently shared a YouTube video of cellist Yo-Yo Ma playing with singer-songwriter James Taylor.

I enjoy both musicians immensely — their talent, charisma and repertory. I love them even more because they exemplify the above quote: they both LOVE music so much that they love music way beyond the boundaries of the genres for which they’re best known. That these two famous and talented musicians can come together and communicate with such ease and produce something lovely and moving is a gift.

Too routinely we dissect musical genres into such tiny slivers, instead of seeing the broader connections of music — all music. Sometimes we even create microscopic divisions within genres, such when the broader “classical” tradition is carved into classical, baroque, romantic, contemporary, and so forth. The labels we affix make it easier to talk about, but they impose artificial and unnecessary limitations, too. We’ve created the label “crossover” to describe collaborations like James Taylor and Yo-Yo Ma’s. Ultimately, though, music is music.

We also put musicians into predetermined categories, implying that what WE know of them is the totality of their gift. But like with so many things in life, such as a gifted actor who is typecast in a particular role, there is often much greater depth, complexity and variety than meets the eye. We see only the tip of the iceberg, and we assume we grasp the breadth of their abilities. Sure, Yo-Yo Ma is a classical cellist and one of the most famous musicians in the world thanks to his performances of music by composers such as Johann Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms and Ludwig van Beethoven. But thanks to his innate curiosity and talent, he has also championed other genres, including bluegrass and world music, thanks to his numerous Silk Road Journeys projects and other collaborations. Yo-Yo Ma’s attitude of wonder about music, and his embrace of other musicians and styles of music is quite natural. He loves music, therefore why wouldn’t he love baroque AND classical AND contemporary AND Chinese pipa music AND Appalachian tunes AND Sweet Baby James …? He has openly admitted that it was a challenge at first to go out of his comfort zone as a classically trained musician and work with his Silk Road Journeys collaborators, for example. Who could have imagined that such an extraordinary musician at the top of his game still had potential to learn and grow as a musician? The gift, the genius, the joy of a musician like Yo-Yo Ma is that he defies narrowly defined genres and expectations, he seeks out new experiences, and he continues to learn and grow. The more he loves music, the more music he loves.

Don’t get me wrong: I think it’s perfectly normal and OK for each of us to have preferences. I don’t think everyone can like everything, all the time. We are all different, including our tastes. It just surprises and saddens me when someone will dismiss an entire genre out of hand, stating their dislike of, say, classical music, or baroque music. In the back of my mind I wonder what stereotype or assumption they are clinging to that has caused them to paint with such a broad brush and declare such a firm and complete aversion, and I wonder if they can be coaxed to try something they think they believe they “don’t like.”

Hearing (and seeing) Yo-Yo Ma and James Taylor sitting down together with such ease to create a lovely musical moment reminds me that we have a lot more in common than we sometimes give ourselves credit for, if only we remain open to it. The more you love music, the more music you love. It applies to many things in life, no?

The more you love people, the more people you love.

My wish for you is to embrace something new — something you perceive as different, or out of your comfort zone or normal wheelhouse. The simple act of trying, stretching, and pushing past artificial or self-imposed limitations can itself be tremendously gratifying, and it can even open up new worlds we assumed were beyond our grasp.