{"id":5048,"date":"2012-02-29T01:10:43","date_gmt":"2012-02-29T08:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=5048"},"modified":"2012-02-29T01:10:43","modified_gmt":"2012-02-29T08:10:43","slug":"chris-thile-and-yo-yo-ma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/02\/chris-thile-and-yo-yo-ma\/","title":{"rendered":"CHRIS THILE AND YO-YO MA"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"CHRIS THILE AND YO-YO MA<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Two master musicians (plus two more) throw a genre-busting rodeo<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

The rhythmic cascade of Chris Thile\u2019s mandolin kicks off \u201cAttaboy,\u201d the\u00a0first track of a new album with the unlikely title The Goat Rodeo Sessions<\/em>. Thile is known<\/p>\n

for virtuosity and whimsy, so neither the bluegrass chops nor the album title is a surprise. But 32 seconds into \u201cAttaboy,\u201d a deeper-toned, bowed instrument unexpectedly takes the melody. That inherently classical sound is acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Classical cello and bluegrass mandolin should by all rights be enemies in the wild, and for a moment the impact is a little like watching a cat and canary skip rope. But after a few seconds it\u2019s apparent that the Goat Rodeo<\/em> collective of Thile, Ma, acoustic bassist Edgar Meyer and bluegrass fiddler Stuart Duncan can send worlds colliding<\/p>\n

in a sublime way.<\/p>\n

A \u201cgoat rodeo\u201d is slang for a chaotic situation that, according to the Urban Dictionary website, \u201crequires about 100 things to go right at once if you intend to walk away from it.\u201d Indeed, says Ma, \u201cCreating order out of chaos is the order of the day in creation.\u201d The foursome appears to have done just that: The album debuted inside the all-genre Billboard 200 album chart. \u201cIt\u2019s not natural for a creative musician to partake in genre separatism,\u201d says Thile, 30, best known for his work with bluegrass trio Nickel Creek (currently on hiatus) and his own Punch Brothers. The awards bestowed upon Ma, 56, during his career range from 16 Grammys to a Presidential Medal of Freedom. We spoke recently with Thile and Ma about their newfound collaboration.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How did this come together?<\/strong><\/p>\n

THILE: Some aspects of the project evolved naturally, and others we sweat over. Yo-Yo is so adept at forging deep, personal bonds quickly, and that makes people want to work hard. But there\u2019s always doubt. I\u2019ve never gone into a project and not had the fear that I was about to make bad music. It was my job as the mandolin player to be the drummer, the glue. And with no plucked instrument companion, I had to step it up and blend my plucked voice with three of the best strings players in the world. That improved me mightily. I think there\u2019s a touch of the euphoria of discovery on this album.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What inspired you?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MA: Friendship and the values of virtuosity and generosity play into the work and inform the process throughout. This album is player-specific inspired. We were creating music that is both shared and tailored to the individual strengths of the musicians and their specific instruments.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

So what did you sweat over?<\/strong><\/p>\n

THILE: The same things we relished\u2014like getting a musician like Yo-Yo, who doesn\u2019t really improvise, to work seamlessly with a musician like Stuart, who doesn\u2019t really read music. Edgar is a great reader, and I\u2019m not; I didn\u2019t start reading until I was 16, so I still remembered what it was like to memorize complicated music. Edgar, Stuart and I worked through all that in the writing process, came up with the first batch of tunes and then brought them to Yo-Yo. He made everyone feel comfortable right away. We felt like we weren\u2019t all the way there yet, but that this was going to work. We were thoroughly convinced of everyone\u2019s musical worth, so we knew if we put in enough effort there was no chance of failure.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What did Stuart bring?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MA: Stuart is a great musician, and watching a fellow string player is always immediately communicative. What Stuart does is to never repeat himself. To listen to anything this man does is to have a great lesson in music.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Did you consider commercial appeal?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MA: I think the equilibrium consists of a balance between the conscious and unconscious elements of music making: That of creating a narrative that strives to keep the maximum participatory attention of a listener using patterns that alternate between the regular and irregular, from which elements of surprise and joy are manufactured.<\/p>\n

THILE: You have to be careful not to be reactionary. In Nickel Creek I felt beholden to a shapeless mass of taste that I didn\u2019t agree with\u2014meaning a public that wanted to hear songs I thought were bad, like things we wrote when we were teenagers and had no idea what we were doing. And so we\u2019d be up there playing music we despised while the Nickel Creek music I really liked, like the last album [2005\u2019s Why Should the Fire Die?<\/em>], was what people liked the least. I got to a place where I said, \u201cI don\u2019t care what people think. They\u2019re not musicians.\u201d But then I made music that was ambitious, and that I\u2019m proud of, but which was at times needlessly esoteric\u2014like daring people not to like it. And that isn\u2019t good either. You have to make music from the place of, \u201cI\u2019m going to do this because I love this,\u201d not out of a reaction to someone else.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Does fame impact expectations?<\/strong><\/p>\n

MA: I think everyone has to constantly try to figure out who they are and how they fit in a changing world. The gap between internal perception and external reality can be very wide. Or is it the other way around? We know that believing your own press is death. We also know that, ultimately, navel gazing is also death. In life, as in music, a strength can become a weakness and vice versa. So I guess notoriety can be a help or a hindrance in creative output, depending on the situation. Being conscious, but not too conscious, and to not take things too seriously but very seriously when need be. That seems to help.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Have you ever considered trying another instrument?<\/strong><\/p>\n

THILE: I wish I had a more serious, working knowledge of the piano. It\u2019s such an amazing thought-enabler, and you can see the music laid out in front of you.\u00a0MA: My wife just bought me an accordion for my birthday.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

How have bluegrass and classical genres melded?<\/strong><\/p>\n

THILE: Edgar, Mark O\u2019Connor and B\u00e9la Fleck deserve a ton of credit for the cross-pollination of bluegrass and classical, but it\u2019s funny to think these things have ever been separated. They won\u2019t be re-separated. We\u2019re heading toward a level of integration that mimics how our lives work, and people now have the width and breadth of musical thought at their fingertips. Music will be as blended together as we are as people.<\/p>\n

MA: No tradition exists without it being invented, and it is always the result of the fusion of different roots. Bluegrass and classical traditions are no different, and their continued existence and vitality depends on the ability for each tradition to evolve.<\/p>\n

\u2013Peter Cooper<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

CHRIS THILE AND YO-YO MA Two master musicians (plus two more) throw a genre-busting rodeo The rhythmic cascade of Chris Thile\u2019s mandolin kicks off \u201cAttaboy,\u201d the\u00a0first track of a new album with the unlikely title The Goat Rodeo Sessions. Thile is known for virtuosity and whimsy, so neither the bluegrass chops nor the album title […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[3150,2864,970],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5048"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5048"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5048\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5050,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5048\/revisions\/5050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5048"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5048"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5048"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}