It was like, how, you know, if maybe there's a younger person listening to this who is thinking about going to music school, like, looking back, like, what's your take on, like, studying music or art in college? Oh, man.

Okay, this is a controversial take, but I think unless you're trying to prepare for a career in orchestra, music school is probably not a good use of your time.

Like, being a symphonic musician is its own thing, and there's a lot of very specific stuff that you need to learn.

There's skills, there's practices, there's a vast amount of repertoire, and the way in which that stuff is interpreted is pretty well established.

And so you need to learn all of those various vocabularies.

But if you're trying to play jazz or... or roots music, bluegrass, country music, folk music, you're better off spending your time actually playing music with people, listening to records, transcribing the players that you really like, going to shows, seeking out maybe a one-on-one teacher, but you don't need You don't need the kind of degree-granting program.

That'll give you a lot of tools.

And so how, like after joining the band, how, for one, how long has the festival been going on? And then two, I'm curious, like how hands-on are you with, you know, the