I have this theory that I share with (Art Institute of Chicago president) Jim Cuno. It’s that nothing great was ever produced in isolation.

The guitar and the sitar are obviously related – even linguistically. The oud moves west from Persia to become the lute; it moves east to become the pipa. And a European hears an erhu and says it’s purely Chinese, a Chinese violin, but in Chinese the word ‘erhu’ means ‘two-stringed foreign instrument.’

-Yo-Yo Ma (read here)

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