Recordings + Yo Yo Ma

Listening to as much music as possible is so important to developing musicians. Well, for all musicians, young, old, amateur and professional alike. There are lots of great brass recordings out there these days, but I think it's really important to listen to all styles and all kinds of performers. I try to be open to listening to everything.

One listening skill I learned about from some string colleagues at Juilliard is to be able to listen critically. One evening I was fortunate to be invited to dinner with Yo Yo Ma by some friends who had recently done some performing with him. He talked about how before performing the Ravel Trio, he listened to ten different recordings of it and evaluated them based on two basic criteria, what was the artists intention and did they achieve it? So in other words, it's not about "do I like the way this person plays?" but does the recording represent what the artist set out to do.

Since then I've tried to approach my own performance and recording projects this way. But it's a very cool concept and can change the way you listen.