Yo-Yo Ma was born in Paris, France on October 7, 1955. His father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, was a violinist and musicologist from China's Shanghai region. He specialized in composition and was widely respected for his talent as a music teacher. Ma's mother was a mezzo-soprano from Hong Kong. Ma's sister, older by four years, played the violin before obtaining a medical degree and becoming a pediatrician.
Ma spent his early childhood in France. He and an older sister began their musical studies on the violin. Ma's father taught the boy to play as a toddler. By the age of four Ma requested a much larger instrument and, left to his own devices, would have selected a double bass. His parents agreed to provide him with a cello on the condition that he would make no further requests for other instruments. As it was, they had difficulty locating a small cello, and Ma's earliest lessons were taken on a viola rigged with an endpin to simulate a cello. He began cello lessons with his father and progressed rapidly. Hiao-Tsiun Ma used Bach suites as music lessons, but simplified the learning process for his son by teaching only two measures at a time.
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