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[Opening theme music]

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Hello, and welcome to this episode
of ArtsAbly in Conversation.

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My name is Diane Kolin.

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The series presents artists, academics,
and project leaders who dedicate their

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time and energy to a better accessibility
for people with disabilities in the arts.

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You can find more of these conversations
on our website, artsably.com,

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which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com.

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[Theme music]

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Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation with
Mercedes Yvonne Lysaker, 

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a cellist, a teacher, and a scholar 
based in New York.

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You can find the resources mentioned by 
Mercedes Yvonne Lysaker during this episode

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 on ArtsAbly's website, in the blog section.

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[Area Zero Underdepths (excerpt) - PokéCello]

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[End of the excerpt]

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Welcome to this new episode
of ArtsAbly in Conversation.

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Today, we are with Mercedes Yvonne Lysaker, 

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who is a cellist, a teacher,

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and a scholar based in New York City.
Welcome.

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Thank you so much for having me, Diane.

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Thank you.

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I know that we went back
and forth a little bit.

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I know that you are also part of the RAMPD
community, which is dear to me too.

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I've been following your
multiple activities.

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I know you have several interesting
projects on the go, and I'm looking

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forward to talking about all that.

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Great.
I'm excited, too.

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Okay, so I always start these episodes
by asking about our guests.

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About your background.

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Can you tell a little bit more about you?

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When did music start for you?

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Music I don't remember when music started
for me, but I was definitely the kid

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that was bouncing around the living room
while my parents played music

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and let me run down all the energy
because it was so overwhelming.

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It was such an enormous sensory experience
for me as a kid.

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But I've been a cellist for a long time.

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I don't want to say how long
because that will age me.

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But I got classical music

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education, standard stuff.

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I was an orchestra musician for a while.

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And then there was the pandemic.

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So since then, my work has expanded

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from where I started.

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I was very much on the orchestral
track, on the teaching track.

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I got a degree in music education.

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I wrote my master's thesis
on the relationships that people have

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with their instruments and how people
have these interpersonal relationships.

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People name their instruments.

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They have very social relationship
with their instruments.

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Then my scholarly interests
turned towards progressive pedagogy.

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Big string pedagogy nerd.

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Really, really like
how the instruments work.

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I enjoy to figure out how to
teach them effectively and efficiently.

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And since New York City shut down for a while,

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and I took that as an opportunity

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to pivot towards a little bit more

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social music making, in a sense,

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because I wasn't going out anymore.

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I wasn't doing things in person,

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but I was more interested in making music

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that was about social things.
I was more interested in...

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I started doing spiritual
music, Jewish spiritual music.

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I'm Jewish.

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Social issue-based compositions.

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And I was on this big plan that I had.

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Through the pandemic, I really
knew where I was going with all this.

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And then I got cancer.

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And getting cancer during
the pandemic was a wild experience.

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I don't recommend it.

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But one thing it did was force me
to slow down a little bit.

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And so I spent my surgery time,
my recovery time, my treatment time,

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playing a lot of video games.

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I think that's probably pretty expected.

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That's when I got this crazy idea
that maybe video game music

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would be a cool thing to do.

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Because I had been so caught off guard
by this medical event, I think as many

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disabled people understand how disruptive
that can be if it happens suddenly.

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For the past couple of years,
I have been a lot into a little

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video game music channel where I take

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video game music and arrange it for

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live cello, of course, in a wide variety
of genres, I do a lot of genre mixing.

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I do a lot of hybrid forms
with orchestral sounds and then

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electronic music all mixed together.

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So, strangely, this diversion from where
I thought I was going with my career

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has really brought up some exciting stuff.

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I'm very grateful 

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that I have this experience because now

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I'm so active in this field.

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All of my projects recently
have been in the video game music world,

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which is a great world to be in,
very progressive, very nice people.

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It's been a real joy.

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Yeah, I can imagine.

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Where did you study?

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What was your university
where you got your master?

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I went to Indiana University.

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I was in the pre- College program there.

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I did my undergrad there,
my master's degree there.

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Then I moved to New York and I went
to Teachers College for my second degree

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because got to go, got to keep learning.
I love learning.

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That's how I ended up in the city
for the pandemic.

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I always like to joke that this was
an awful idea because I decided to go to

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music school during the great recession.

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And then within 10 years
after I graduated, global pandemic

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shut everything down.

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I don't think I could
have had worse timing.

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That's not including the cancer
and the car crashes, but it was just...

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I don't know how anyone let me do that.
Thanks, Mom and Dad.

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I love you guys.

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The cancer and the car crash.

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So I guess that's part of my story.
That's when I acquired my disability.

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I was in my second full year
as an orchestra musician, and I was in

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Southern Indiana, so it was all driving.

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And hit a deer.

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The carpool I was in hit
a deer, totaled the car.

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And I just felt real weird
for a couple of days.

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Went to the doctor and they said,
Oh, probably a head injury.

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You might want to do something about that.

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And I never recovered.

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Just never came back
to where I was before.

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But you know what?

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Ironically, I think being a musician
was very helpful because I did not

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rely on a 9:00 to 5:00
office job, which I cannot do.

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That was never something
that I needed to do.

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I never had to be in a room
with fluorescent lights

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surrounded by people talking to me.

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Ironic that I was already
in an accessible field,

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although we can come back to that later
about how accessible the field really is.

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You studied classical performance
with an acoustic cello?

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Correct.

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At a certain point, you switched to an
electronic cello, or electric cello.

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The real reason that I went to music
school, and I have a professional answer

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for job interviews, but for stuff
like this, I can be honest.

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I was really into Apocalyptica,

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a heavy metal band that's all on cello.

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Discovered that in middle school.

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Middle school is when you have
those heavy metal feelings

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that you have to deal with.

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That's when those start.

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Obsessed, just absolutely obsessed.

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Whole discography, knew
all these songs back and forth.

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I would just play them on my cello.

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I would put on my headphones
and turn up the music real loud

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and try to figure out the parts.

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Then I went to music school
and we didn't play very much Metallica

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in the conservatory.

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But then when I graduated, I just had this
crazy idea that I was on route to go to

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a friend's new place in South Carolina,
and we drove through North Carolina

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where the electric violin shop is.

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I was like, Well,
I never played an electric cello.

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That sounds cool.
I might go check it out.

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Oh, boy, was that a bad idea?

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Because I could not
get that out of my head.

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It was just the most electrifying
experience, possibly, of my life,

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because I could be loud, because
I could really wail on this instrument.

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My acoustic cello is the love of my life.

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Her name is Amelie, good French
name, and my ecello is in the background.

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Her name is Rosie.

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But I suddenly could tap

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into that initial feeling

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that got me obsessed with the cello.

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I could be loud.

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I could cry in a way.

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That was what was harder
for me to do on the acoustic cello.

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One nice thing about the electric
cello, obviously, can add effects to it.

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You can make it sound like a guitar.

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You can make it sound anything you want.

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It is also very quiet
because it doesn't have a resonator.

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I live in a New York City
apartment building.

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Hey, I am practicing recording
at 3:00 AM and nobody cares.

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Little bonus there.

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So from that, is that...

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When did you start considering, Oh, I should 

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create my own identity as a fusion

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metal rock player or something like that?

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When did you start considering
because I know you have a name

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where you perform that genre, right?

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Yeah. I started that path

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mentally and emotionally.

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It took a little bit
for things to crystallize.

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In 2016, when there was a presidential
election that was very difficult,

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and I realized I'm not a lawyer.

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I'm not a policy person.
I don't work in politics.

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I didn't feel like there's
anything I could do.

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All these things were happening
that are happening again.

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Yeah, sorry...

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[Laughs.]
I'm sorry.

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I'm very sorry.

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But I realized... 

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I felt like there was something
that was just missing, 

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that I was just seeing all these things happening, 
and I couldn't do anything about it.

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It took a little bit before...
At least I can make music.

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I can make music that's angry,
and I can make music that's sad,

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and I can make music that, at the very,

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very least, mocks something in this time.

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I think my first...
I adopted the name Contraforma

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in 2020, 2021, somewhere in there.

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That came to me when I was writing.

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I was writing a journal article, and
I was trying to come up with an antonym

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for conform, because I had this image,

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this sensory feeling of...

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I think of Play-Doh or Silly Putty, 

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and you squish it with your hands 
and make into a shape.

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The Play-Doh conforms to the shape.

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But what would happen if the Play-Doh
refused and expanded instead

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of you pushing in and expanded out?

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And I came up with contraform.

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Instead of conform, contraform.

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And then I threw an A on the end 
because I'm a lady, you know.

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That feeling of pushing, pushing back,

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feeling all this pressure to be smaller

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to be quieter or more
palatable, whatever it is.

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I'm just saying, No, I'm good,
and actively pushing that out.

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My first single was about
the Texas abortion ban

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that I think hit in 2021 or 2022.

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It was called Aid and Abet.

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That's where that came from.

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I just felt I got to do something.

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I have all these people around me
who are smart, 

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and I'm just like, I play the cello.

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But having that really gave me
an opportunity to at least try.

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Got to try.

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Yeah, but speaking of smart, it was

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very smart to use this contraforma that

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you're mentioning that is now the name

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of your identity as a fusion cellist and

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to play Johann Sebastian Bach and Vivaldi
in fusion and in rock and in metal.

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It's so natural.

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I think that everyone who hears,
especially for baroque music in a certain way, 

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you only have to hear it a certain way 
once, and you can't unhear how much

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in common it really has with the sound

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profile, the atmosphere of heavy metal.

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When I put those effects
on and was playing...

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Okay, the Vivaldi came from
a teacher training that I had to do.

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I had to perform the piece,
I had to memorize it.

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I was practicing, and I was really bored.

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Then I thought,
Let's put some effects on this.

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That's how that came out.

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I was just like, This is
the best thing I've ever heard.

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It worked so, so well.

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It was very cool.

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What about PokéCello?

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Oh, boy.
The only way that I got through cancer,

242
00:18:14,126 --> 00:18:15,994
besides my family, I love you.

243
00:18:16,028 --> 00:18:18,997
Thank you, family, played
a lot of video games.

244
00:18:18,997 --> 00:18:24,870
It was such a way for me to be engrossed
in something that was not the disruption

245
00:18:24,903 --> 00:18:28,373
to my life because I couldn't work.
It was the pandemic.

246
00:18:28,407 --> 00:18:31,410
If I got COVID, I would have to not
get surgery, not get treatment,

247
00:18:31,443 --> 00:18:34,546
and I just had to be isolated.

248
00:18:34,580 --> 00:18:39,952
I realized how many people rely on

249
00:18:39,952 --> 00:18:43,489
something trivial, like video games,

250
00:18:43,489 --> 00:18:46,058
as a support mechanism.

251
00:18:46,091 --> 00:18:50,195
I was sitting there just,
How am I going to get back to this?

252
00:18:50,229 --> 00:18:52,064
How am I going to move forward?

253
00:18:52,097 --> 00:18:58,437
I thought, Well, what if I just
go play one of these themes on the cello?

254
00:18:59,738 --> 00:19:02,574
That was kind of fun.

255
00:19:02,574 --> 00:19:07,346
I realized that one thing that I could do 

256
00:19:07,346 --> 00:19:11,316
to at least express my appreciation

257
00:19:11,316 --> 00:19:17,656
for the way these video games
helped me in this hard time

258
00:19:17,689 --> 00:19:20,626
was to celebrate their music.

259
00:19:20,659 --> 00:19:24,263
It started out as a little side
project, something I would do when I

260
00:19:24,296 --> 00:19:27,833
was procrastinating on my other projects.

261
00:19:27,866 --> 00:19:33,872
I realized how much I loved 
arranging and orchestrating.

262
00:19:33,872 --> 00:19:39,077
I would take these themes
that were not written for cello.

263
00:19:39,111 --> 00:19:42,981
Many of them were not written
for human plate instruments at all.

264
00:19:42,981 --> 00:19:47,019
They were written for sound
chips, for the Game Boy 

265
00:19:47,019 --> 00:19:49,321
and the Game Boy events 
had their own chips.

266
00:19:49,354 --> 00:19:52,624
Never meant to be played by
a human being when they were composed.

267
00:19:52,658 --> 00:19:56,194
So it was a really, really neat experience

268
00:19:56,228 --> 00:20:03,602
and almost an academic exercise to take
these themes,

269
00:20:03,635 --> 00:20:09,908
try to extract some melodic component,
and then build up

270
00:20:09,942 --> 00:20:13,011
from, I get it, sometimes a very thin

271
00:20:13,045 --> 00:20:17,616
original material, a whole foundation of

272
00:20:17,649 --> 00:20:21,587
keyboards, of strings,
of brass, of synths.

273
00:20:21,620 --> 00:20:24,823
And I started out doing really,
really simple things.

274
00:20:24,856 --> 00:20:31,129
My most recent project
was a complete reimagining,

275
00:20:31,163 --> 00:20:36,034
a complete reorchestration of a new theme

276
00:20:36,068 --> 00:20:39,871
from this video game franchise.

277
00:20:39,871 --> 00:20:43,075
I did not expect...

278
00:20:43,075 --> 00:20:48,814
Starting a YouTube channel, 
you got to stick with it

279
00:20:48,847 --> 00:20:51,350
if you want to see any gains from it.

280
00:20:51,383 --> 00:20:58,557
I was really surprised that because
I had found this niche completely by

281
00:20:58,557 --> 00:21:05,330
happenstance, by circumstance, I was able
to build a little name for myself.

282
00:21:05,364 --> 00:21:08,734
My channel is doing well.

283
00:21:08,767 --> 00:21:14,873
It's very tiny, it's microscopic, but
there are people who listen to my music.

284
00:21:14,906 --> 00:21:19,511
There are people who listen to my music
when they're having a hard time.

285
00:21:19,544 --> 00:21:26,685
Because I started this for my own hard
time, that's been very

286
00:21:26,952 --> 00:21:29,154
rewarding, I think.

287
00:21:29,154 --> 00:21:31,356
You're also a teacher.

288
00:21:31,356 --> 00:21:35,661
Yes, I am also a teacher and a writer.

289
00:21:35,694 --> 00:21:39,298
My teaching has slowed
down a little bit because, again,

290
00:21:39,298 --> 00:21:43,268
of the whole global pandemic.

291
00:21:43,301 --> 00:21:48,874
But writing was also one of those things
that I was really able to focus on

292
00:21:48,874 --> 00:21:54,513
when things shut down because it's just
me and my brain, which works sometimes.

293
00:21:54,546 --> 00:21:58,417
Not a guarantee,
but sometimes it does work.

294
00:21:58,450 --> 00:22:00,385
What about these publications?

295
00:22:00,419 --> 00:22:01,620
I know you published a lot.

296
00:22:01,620 --> 00:22:06,358
You did also some conference presentations
about your work.

297
00:22:06,358 --> 00:22:10,862
I'm interested in the topics that
you're treating in these publications.

298
00:22:10,896 --> 00:22:16,134
My big focus has been
progressive string pedagogy.

299
00:22:16,134 --> 00:22:21,473
Progressive education and music education
have somewhat of a history.

300
00:22:21,473 --> 00:22:25,377
It's not as significant

301
00:22:25,377 --> 00:22:28,647
as other types of education.

302
00:22:28,680 --> 00:22:35,020
But what I noticed was that the really
foundational philosophies of progressive

303
00:22:35,020 --> 00:22:41,760
education had not made their way into how
to teach people to play the violin

304
00:22:41,760 --> 00:22:48,467
because the classical music education
industrial complex is impermeable.

305
00:22:48,500 --> 00:22:51,903
It's very, very difficult
to get anything to change.

306
00:22:51,937 --> 00:22:55,741
I realized that in music education,
you basically had two things.

307
00:22:55,741 --> 00:22:59,344
You could go the classical route where 
maybe you would get a great teacher, 

308
00:22:59,377 --> 00:23:00,779
maybe you get an abusive one.

309
00:23:00,812 --> 00:23:03,882
That It was very, very common
where I went to school.

310
00:23:03,882 --> 00:23:09,855
Or you could go to someone
who was progressive, but who wouldn't

311
00:23:09,888 --> 00:23:11,523
give you anything of rigor.

312
00:23:11,523 --> 00:23:15,427
They would just, Oh, you're doing great.
That's a great job.

313
00:23:15,460 --> 00:23:21,600
It was very difficult for me
to move these things closer to each other

314
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:27,606
so that you could have the intensity,
I think, of classical training

315
00:23:27,639 --> 00:23:34,813
where you have laser focus on the smallest, 

316
00:23:34,846 --> 00:23:37,949
the finest of fine motor skills.

317
00:23:37,983 --> 00:23:40,752
You're really thinking
about body mechanics.

318
00:23:40,786 --> 00:23:44,823
You're thinking about how to achieve

319
00:23:45,056 --> 00:23:48,226
very minute movements that can blossom

320
00:23:48,260 --> 00:23:53,331
into this whole repertoire of technique.

321
00:23:53,365 --> 00:23:59,971
I was very excited
by the possibility that

322
00:24:00,005 --> 00:24:03,074
we could still to have this

323
00:24:03,542 --> 00:24:08,213
great tradition of very rigorous,

324
00:24:08,246 --> 00:24:12,083
very intense classical training,
where we could train people to play these

325
00:24:12,117 --> 00:24:15,487
instruments to a really high level,

326
00:24:15,687 --> 00:24:20,559
while also perhaps shedding some of

327
00:24:20,559 --> 00:24:23,862
the conservative elements of conservatory.

328
00:24:23,895 --> 00:24:27,933
I was very interested
in changing repertoire.

329
00:24:27,966 --> 00:24:33,238
I was very interested in changing
the Suzuki method because

330
00:24:33,238 --> 00:24:35,340
I am a Suzuki-certified teacher.

331
00:24:35,340 --> 00:24:37,876
I did a lot of Suzuki training.

332
00:24:37,876 --> 00:24:41,980
I really, really liked the scaffolding,
like the sequencing.

333
00:24:41,980 --> 00:24:44,482
I did not like that you
had to play Vivaldi.

334
00:24:44,482 --> 00:24:51,022
When I was teaching in the city
before the pandemic, I met so many

335
00:24:51,022 --> 00:24:55,594
students who loved the craft, almost.

336
00:24:55,627 --> 00:24:58,129
They were very, very interested
in figuring it out.

337
00:24:58,163 --> 00:25:00,031
They saw the cello as a puzzle.

338
00:25:00,065 --> 00:25:03,635
They saw it as something
that they could really explore.

339
00:25:03,802 --> 00:25:06,538
They did not want to play Suzuki Book 1.

340
00:25:06,571 --> 00:25:10,909
They wanted to play the We Shop menu.

341
00:25:10,909 --> 00:25:13,645
They would come up with... They would say, 
Can we play Chicken Nugget Dreamland?

342
00:25:13,678 --> 00:25:15,380
I was like,
What's Chicken Nugget Dreamland?

343
00:25:15,380 --> 00:25:17,816
They would play it for me.
I'm like, Okay, let's play that.

344
00:25:17,849 --> 00:25:20,385
That is not in the Suzuki
books, by the way.

345
00:25:20,418 --> 00:25:22,721
It is a bop. It is a banger.
You should check it out.

346
00:25:22,721 --> 00:25:29,127
What I could do was I could take these
really, really important principles for

347
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:36,701
approaching the instrument, for getting
a foundation, build those smoothly.

348
00:25:36,735 --> 00:25:41,773
Then ideally, my students

349
00:25:41,806 --> 00:25:46,111
would leave with enough ability

350
00:25:46,144 --> 00:25:50,782
to play what they wanted and to play
when they wanted and how they wanted.

351
00:25:50,815 --> 00:25:52,884
If they wanted to be
a professional, that's great.

352
00:25:52,918 --> 00:25:56,054
If they wanted to play
at a family party, fantastic.

353
00:25:56,087 --> 00:25:58,423
If they wanted to do exactly
what I did, put on their favorite music

354
00:25:58,423 --> 00:26:01,960
with their headphones and 
play along to get through 

355
00:26:01,960 --> 00:26:06,998
the horrors of adolescence, 
that's worth it. That's important.

356
00:26:07,032 --> 00:26:12,237
And I think that's the excitement
that I got from maybe finding

357
00:26:12,270 --> 00:26:15,273
that little missing piece of education.

358
00:26:15,307 --> 00:26:22,847
So my scholarship has been mostly about
how to approach building curriculum.

359
00:26:22,881 --> 00:26:25,417
A lot of the things that you
see in progressive education,

360
00:26:25,417 --> 00:26:29,888
progressive music education
is very abstract, and that's not good.

361
00:26:29,921 --> 00:26:35,126
We have teachers are so overworked
and underpaid that they have to use

362
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:37,262
the materials we give them,
so we got to give them better materials.

363
00:26:37,262 --> 00:26:40,265
What materials can we build?

364
00:26:40,298 --> 00:26:44,502
I wanted to just add a little bit

365
00:26:44,536 --> 00:26:49,874
to the library that we pull from when

366
00:26:49,908 --> 00:26:53,311
we teach so that we could have maybe just

367
00:26:53,345 --> 00:26:59,084
a slightly wider pool of instrumentalists
in the next generations.

368
00:27:00,018 --> 00:27:03,888
Did you do professional developments
for teachers or people

369
00:27:03,922 --> 00:27:06,658
who wanted to go further in that?

370
00:27:06,691 --> 00:27:09,060
Yeah, I've done a couple workshops.

371
00:27:09,094 --> 00:27:14,933
I've done talks at universities

372
00:27:14,966 --> 00:27:17,335
and education departments.

373
00:27:17,369 --> 00:27:21,773
One of my more recent ones was 

374
00:27:21,806 --> 00:27:24,609
adapting a framework from literacy, 

375
00:27:24,609 --> 00:27:27,779
from reading education, actually, to music.

376
00:27:27,812 --> 00:27:31,983
The framework was how literature shows us

377
00:27:32,017 --> 00:27:36,821
windows into other people's lives.

378
00:27:36,855 --> 00:27:41,459
And it can also show us mirrors and show
us our own life reflected back in them.

379
00:27:41,493 --> 00:27:43,161
It makes a lot of sense in literature.

380
00:27:43,161 --> 00:27:47,732
And I thought, well,
What does that look like in music?

381
00:27:47,766 --> 00:27:50,402
What would a musical mirror look like?

382
00:27:50,435 --> 00:27:53,138
What would a musical window look like?

383
00:27:53,138 --> 00:27:56,941
And I went through some of our more common

384
00:27:57,075 --> 00:28:00,545
string education materials, 

385
00:28:00,545 --> 00:28:03,581
and I said, Hey, who has mirrors here?

386
00:28:03,615 --> 00:28:06,818
Who has mirrors?
Who has windows?

387
00:28:06,851 --> 00:28:08,153
What does that mean?

388
00:28:08,153 --> 00:28:12,057
What does that change for
the learning experience of that student

389
00:28:12,323 --> 00:28:15,493
when maybe those things are not balanced?

390
00:28:17,762 --> 00:28:19,831
For sure.

391
00:28:19,864 --> 00:28:21,533
Did you have an answer?

392
00:28:21,533 --> 00:28:23,768
[Laughs.]
Oh, boy.

393
00:28:23,802 --> 00:28:27,439
Well, as an academic,
you never have any answers.

394
00:28:27,472 --> 00:28:30,875
You got to write more papers.

395
00:28:30,909 --> 00:28:32,744
Yeah.

396
00:28:32,777 --> 00:28:35,613
I know.

397
00:28:36,815 --> 00:28:40,752
There is something
I read in your biography,

398
00:28:40,785 --> 00:28:44,022
and that - I have to ask the question.

399
00:28:44,055 --> 00:28:49,627
I read that you're working
with some national trade organizations

400
00:28:49,661 --> 00:28:52,897
advocating for disability rights
and string education.

401
00:28:52,931 --> 00:28:56,768
What are these national
trade organizations?

402
00:28:56,968 --> 00:29:03,475
Well, one of them is called RAMPD,
of course, the dear organization

403
00:29:03,508 --> 00:29:07,045
Recording Artists and Music
Professionals with Disabilities.

404
00:29:07,812 --> 00:29:10,815
One thing that I did notice as a scholar,

405
00:29:10,849 --> 00:29:13,751
well, scholar sounds a little,

406
00:29:13,785 --> 00:29:17,489
not a very accessible field.

407
00:29:17,522 --> 00:29:21,726
Not a lot of people who were interested in

408
00:29:22,861 --> 00:29:26,164
non-superficial accessibility.

409
00:29:26,197 --> 00:29:29,434
I feel like there's a lot
of things where we have a ramp.

410
00:29:30,001 --> 00:29:33,071
We have a wheelchair user
in our promotional materials.

411
00:29:33,171 --> 00:29:35,273
We have a performer
with a limb difference.

412
00:29:35,306 --> 00:29:38,643
We... check.
We did it.

413
00:29:38,643 --> 00:29:43,715
I just happened to see on Twitter many,
many years ago, it feels like now, that

414
00:29:43,748 --> 00:29:45,817
there was maybe this new organization.

415
00:29:45,850 --> 00:29:51,523
And that did really crystallize a couple
of things for me because I realized

416
00:29:51,523 --> 00:29:58,530
that this feeling I had about 
the inaccessibility of,

417
00:29:58,530 --> 00:30:00,098
I mean, not just performing,

418
00:30:00,098 --> 00:30:05,303
but also teaching also being
something of an academic, 

419
00:30:05,303 --> 00:30:08,773
trying to talk to people, 
trying to share ideas.

420
00:30:09,607 --> 00:30:11,843
There was a gap there.

421
00:30:11,876 --> 00:30:19,250
There weren't a lot of people in those rooms 
who were thinking about the things that

422
00:30:19,517 --> 00:30:22,587
 RAMPD is just loud about.

423
00:30:22,620 --> 00:30:26,758
I mean, disability culture, blank looks.

424
00:30:26,758 --> 00:30:32,197
Very, very little interest in adjusting

425
00:30:32,230 --> 00:30:34,465
how we do things because of the pandemic.

426
00:30:34,499 --> 00:30:37,235
Being at somewhat of a higher risk

427
00:30:37,235 --> 00:30:42,307
for COVID complications, suddenly, nobody -

428
00:30:42,340 --> 00:30:46,811
everyone was fine with me no longer being there.

429
00:30:46,845 --> 00:30:49,214
I like to stay at home and do nothing.

430
00:30:49,247 --> 00:30:52,217
So sometimes I was also
happy with not being there.

431
00:30:52,217 --> 00:30:57,488
But the feeling that

432
00:30:57,622 --> 00:30:59,691
suddenly I didn't really know

433
00:30:59,724 --> 00:31:03,962
how to advocate for myself I
knew intellectually 

434
00:31:03,962 --> 00:31:06,297
that something was wrong, but I also knew 

435
00:31:06,297 --> 00:31:10,134
that there were probably dozens, hundreds

436
00:31:10,168 --> 00:31:14,772
of other people like me who are being
pushed out, who were feeling that they did not 

437
00:31:14,772 --> 00:31:18,409
have anyone who would listen to them.

438
00:31:18,443 --> 00:31:22,080
They didn't feel...

439
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:25,316
Maybe they didn't have
an opportunity to voice things.

440
00:31:25,316 --> 00:31:29,354
And so finding RAMPD helped crystallize

441
00:31:29,387 --> 00:31:35,293
some of the the principles of advocacy

442
00:31:35,326 --> 00:31:40,265
and activism and being loud.

443
00:31:40,298 --> 00:31:45,103
I think that's the thing
that really draws me to RAMPD

444
00:31:45,136 --> 00:31:52,176
is that it is not polite all the time.

445
00:31:52,176 --> 00:31:58,383
I mean, maybe that's not a nice thing
to say, but we're very interested in

446
00:31:58,383 --> 00:32:02,887
getting equity, getting access, 

447
00:32:02,887 --> 00:32:08,326
and we're not going to be pretty pleased about...

448
00:32:08,359 --> 00:32:13,097
There's an insistence that I think is
necessary, especially in these times,

449
00:32:13,131 --> 00:32:17,368
and a defiant celebration

450
00:32:17,402 --> 00:32:19,270
that we're here, 

451
00:32:19,270 --> 00:32:21,973
we know what we're doing, 
we're professionals,

452
00:32:21,973 --> 00:32:25,777
and it's time to let us in.

453
00:32:25,810 --> 00:32:30,815
We're promoting disability
culture, which is very important,

454
00:32:30,848 --> 00:32:35,019
and trying to show that accessibility
in the art is important.

455
00:32:35,053 --> 00:32:38,656
While in these times, someone is just

456
00:32:38,656 --> 00:32:42,660
saying that EDI is not important and

457
00:32:42,694 --> 00:32:47,332
removing important pages from important
websites, I wouldn't name this person,

458
00:32:47,365 --> 00:32:53,871
but really, it makes it even more
important for us to talk about that.

459
00:32:53,905 --> 00:32:58,876
Can you give us a meaning or a definition 

460
00:32:58,876 --> 00:33:01,646
of what it is for you, disability culture?

461
00:33:01,646 --> 00:33:02,880
I...

462
00:33:02,880 --> 00:33:06,651
Recently, I had a really great
experience with Lachi.

463
00:33:06,684 --> 00:33:13,024
I worked on some music videos
with her, and this was my first

464
00:33:13,057 --> 00:33:18,663
COVID safe production that
I had really done where I was not...

465
00:33:18,696 --> 00:33:22,133
Usually, I am the person wearing a mask
and avoiding things, right?

466
00:33:22,166 --> 00:33:28,106
But this was the first event production
that I'd been to where

467
00:33:28,106 --> 00:33:30,475
everyone was wearing a mask 
because I was there.

468
00:33:30,508 --> 00:33:33,711
I had my little trustee air purifier.

469
00:33:33,745 --> 00:33:40,618
What was very interesting to me was that
every person in that room

470
00:33:40,651 --> 00:33:43,287
also had access needs.

471
00:33:43,321 --> 00:33:46,657
Because I was focused on
the COVID safety as an access need.

472
00:33:46,691 --> 00:33:52,463
But I was not the only person
in the room who had needs.

473
00:33:52,497 --> 00:33:57,735
And some people needed the lights
to not flash, no bright light.

474
00:33:57,769 --> 00:34:01,773
Some people needed to see
people's mouths to read lips.

475
00:34:01,773 --> 00:34:05,343
And that was a rare occurrence for me.

476
00:34:05,343 --> 00:34:12,083
I am very used to being the only person
in the room with access needs.

477
00:34:12,083 --> 00:34:14,519
And so suddenly, that was just normal.

478
00:34:14,519 --> 00:34:17,522
That was just what was happening
everyone had that.

479
00:34:17,522 --> 00:34:25,029
And there was this real feeling
of safety, of camaraderie, of community,

480
00:34:25,063 --> 00:34:29,534
because I wasn't the weird one anymore.

481
00:34:29,567 --> 00:34:34,972
I always I feel just a little bit
off, and I wear these glasses

482
00:34:35,006 --> 00:34:38,776
because of the lights, and I have
really bad light sensitivity.

483
00:34:38,810 --> 00:34:43,448
I look a little odd sometimes,
and I'm very used to being the one person

484
00:34:43,481 --> 00:34:46,984
that's like, Hey, I need something.

485
00:34:47,018 --> 00:34:48,853
I need this, I need that.

486
00:34:48,886 --> 00:34:53,224
Very few other people are expressing
their needs, their access needs.

487
00:34:53,257 --> 00:34:57,929
But being on this production with Lachi
really crystallized for me that

488
00:34:57,962 --> 00:35:04,836
disability culture is a way of life, is a
way of interacting with people where your

489
00:35:04,869 --> 00:35:09,040
access needs are like everything else.

490
00:35:09,040 --> 00:35:13,978
I have a name, I have an identity,
I have a role, I have access needs.

491
00:35:13,978 --> 00:35:16,214
And that's exactly the same for you.

492
00:35:16,247 --> 00:35:20,351
It was the same for every
single person on that set.

493
00:35:20,384 --> 00:35:24,922
I was not the only person
anymore with access needs.

494
00:35:24,922 --> 00:35:28,259
And feeling that, feeling that just be normalized, 

495
00:35:28,259 --> 00:35:31,028
that just being part of the process, 

496
00:35:31,028 --> 00:35:33,764
Revolutionary for me, frankly.

497
00:35:33,798 --> 00:35:38,669
Disability culture for me
is that feeling of community.

498
00:35:38,703 --> 00:35:40,538
This is not something
that makes us different,

499
00:35:40,538 --> 00:35:43,908
it's something that makes us alike.

500
00:35:43,941 --> 00:35:49,380
Yeah, that's very interesting
because the access need is something

501
00:35:49,380 --> 00:35:55,953
that either is not frequently
talked about or treated as an exception

502
00:35:55,987 --> 00:36:01,159
or something that is like, No, you're
the only one who has an access need.

503
00:36:01,192 --> 00:36:04,896
Everybody has an access
need, even non-disabled folks.

504
00:36:04,896 --> 00:36:11,202
They have access needs because they need a
desk that sometimes surrelevates because

505
00:36:11,235 --> 00:36:17,375
they have back issues or they frequently
travel, so they have these always

506
00:36:17,408 --> 00:36:22,880
carrying all these suitcases and
needing something that is easy to roll.

507
00:36:22,914 --> 00:36:25,249
It's an access need.

508
00:36:25,283 --> 00:36:28,953
That idea that

509
00:36:28,953 --> 00:36:31,622
everyone has access needs and

510
00:36:31,622 --> 00:36:35,726
one thing that we can do is make that normal.

511
00:36:35,760 --> 00:36:41,599
I mean, that just blows the door open
for not just disabled people,

512
00:36:41,632 --> 00:36:46,137
but single parents,
people that work multiple jobs,

513
00:36:46,170 --> 00:36:53,144
people that are caregivers to their family
members, everyone that has access needs

514
00:36:53,177 --> 00:36:58,416
who doesn't have a space to

515
00:36:58,449 --> 00:37:01,719
say them, to ask for them.

516
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:05,189
That door can be kicked
open for them as well.

517
00:37:05,222 --> 00:37:09,026
I think that's pretty cool.

518
00:37:09,060 --> 00:37:13,497
Do you have this conversation
with your students sometimes about

519
00:37:13,531 --> 00:37:18,903
access needs or different way of playing

520
00:37:18,936 --> 00:37:22,206
that might be different than the traditional

521
00:37:22,239 --> 00:37:25,509
way they are learning, things like that?

522
00:37:25,543 --> 00:37:31,749
When I started teaching,
I had no real goals.

523
00:37:31,782 --> 00:37:33,517
I had no real plans.

524
00:37:33,517 --> 00:37:35,920
I'm going to be completely honest
with you, when I started,

525
00:37:35,920 --> 00:37:40,558
I wanted extra money because you got
to make money as a working musician.

526
00:37:40,558 --> 00:37:45,796
But when I started doing my training,
I realized that a lot of the things

527
00:37:45,830 --> 00:37:48,799
I was being taught to do were - 

528
00:37:48,799 --> 00:37:50,868
I didn't use this language then, 
but I can use it now,

529
00:37:50,868 --> 00:37:52,536
they were not accessible.

530
00:37:52,570 --> 00:37:54,872
They were for one type of student.

531
00:37:54,905 --> 00:38:02,146
If that student had, I mean, performance
anxiety, if that student had

532
00:38:02,146 --> 00:38:06,150
emotional regulation issues, if that student

533
00:38:06,884 --> 00:38:11,589
was not a cookie cutter, right?

534
00:38:11,622 --> 00:38:18,529
I would fail them as a teacher,
but they would fail.

535
00:38:18,562 --> 00:38:21,432
I would be the true failure, but
they would be the one who were labeled.

536
00:38:21,465 --> 00:38:25,503
The failure would be placed on them, 
and the blame would be placed on them 

537
00:38:25,503 --> 00:38:27,972
for not being capable.

538
00:38:28,005 --> 00:38:31,208
And I remember in my very first
training, I brought something

539
00:38:31,242 --> 00:38:33,711
like this up because it shocked me.

540
00:38:33,744 --> 00:38:39,884
It really bothered me that I knew people
who would not respond to this teaching.

541
00:38:39,884 --> 00:38:45,556
And I said, well, hey, what do we
do when we have a student who

542
00:38:45,556 --> 00:38:48,292
says this or needs this or asks this.

543
00:38:48,326 --> 00:38:51,562
They didn't have an answer.

544
00:38:51,562 --> 00:38:52,997
They just really didn't.

545
00:38:52,997 --> 00:38:58,369
So my real impetus for actually going
and getting

546
00:38:59,136 --> 00:39:05,242
training, going back to grad school
for music education, was because I noticed

547
00:39:05,276 --> 00:39:11,716
the way that we teach children,
especially when they get 

548
00:39:11,716 --> 00:39:16,654
to be young adults and they go to college,
can be very damaging.

549
00:39:17,121 --> 00:39:22,560
I knew people in college with
real, real problems that came from

550
00:39:22,593 --> 00:39:25,963
their teachers not meeting their needs.

551
00:39:25,963 --> 00:39:30,401
And I think that if you are a freshman 
in conservatory and you walk into that studio 

552
00:39:30,401 --> 00:39:35,473
with a great master, you're not
going to advocate for yourself.

553
00:39:35,506 --> 00:39:40,177
The power dynamic is too strong there.

554
00:39:40,211 --> 00:39:46,517
And so it gets very, very easy
to put all these things on yourself

555
00:39:46,517 --> 00:39:48,619
to say, I am the one who is failing.

556
00:39:48,619 --> 00:39:50,788
I am the one who is not good enough.

557
00:39:50,821 --> 00:39:56,093
When really there are things
that the community can do.

558
00:39:56,127 --> 00:39:57,595
There are things that
your teachers can do.

559
00:39:57,628 --> 00:39:59,296
There are things that the
administrators can do.

560
00:39:59,296 --> 00:40:02,933
There are things that
the institutions can do.

561
00:40:02,967 --> 00:40:08,339
When I was a teacher and I started
observing this and looking at this,

562
00:40:08,372 --> 00:40:10,941
I wish I knew the term access needs.

563
00:40:10,975 --> 00:40:19,116
I wish I had that direct language
because that made me really mad.

564
00:40:19,116 --> 00:40:20,918
Did not like that.

565
00:40:21,285 --> 00:40:26,957
Did this realization impact your music,
your performance practices,

566
00:40:26,991 --> 00:40:31,128
or the way you were seeing your music?

567
00:40:31,162 --> 00:40:36,934
It definitely made me

568
00:40:36,967 --> 00:40:40,371
a little bit more clear-headed.

569
00:40:40,404 --> 00:40:45,242
It clarified things for me
in terms of what I was bringing in

570
00:40:45,242 --> 00:40:46,777
to the practice room.

571
00:40:46,811 --> 00:40:48,779
Love practicing, obsessed with practicing.

572
00:40:48,813 --> 00:40:51,048
I can be alone in a room
and no one is allowed to talk to me

573
00:40:51,081 --> 00:40:53,484
for hours, like a dream scenario.

574
00:40:53,484 --> 00:40:59,857
The issue that I certainly had at maybe
the end of college was that

575
00:40:59,857 --> 00:41:05,429
it was bringing more into practice room
with me than the instrument.

576
00:41:05,463 --> 00:41:09,800
When I started looking into this issue,
when I started teaching and started researching, 

577
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:14,538
one of my very first questions was, 

578
00:41:14,538 --> 00:41:17,341
how do we help students?

579
00:41:17,374 --> 00:41:24,882
How do we help other professionals only
bring the stuff they really need

580
00:41:24,882 --> 00:41:26,116
into the practice room?

581
00:41:26,150 --> 00:41:30,054
How do we get them to leave
their teacher's voice in the hallway,

582
00:41:30,087 --> 00:41:35,025
that internal critic that's always seeing
something wrong with what you're doing?

583
00:41:35,059 --> 00:41:42,266
How do you leave the pressure of auditions
in the hallway when you go to practice?

584
00:41:42,299 --> 00:41:46,270
Some people can do that very naturally,
and they are the ones that get ahead.

585
00:41:46,303 --> 00:41:48,205
Other people who can't
do that naturally, they're the ones

586
00:41:48,239 --> 00:41:51,675
with substance use problems.

587
00:41:51,709 --> 00:41:58,682
For the first time, I was able
to really put language to that.

588
00:41:58,682 --> 00:42:01,919
I was able to say, I do not
need my teacher's voice in my head.

589
00:42:01,919 --> 00:42:04,488
I do not need that in the practice room.
I need a metronome.

590
00:42:04,521 --> 00:42:05,623
I need a tuner.

591
00:42:05,623 --> 00:42:09,460
I need my étude books.

592
00:42:09,493 --> 00:42:13,797
I do not need an internal critic.

593
00:42:13,998 --> 00:42:17,468
Having that did help
my approach to the instrument,

594
00:42:17,501 --> 00:42:20,070
which I hope makes me a better teacher.
I don't know.

595
00:42:20,104 --> 00:42:21,639
Fingers crossed.

596
00:42:22,106 --> 00:42:25,543
I want to go back briefly
to what you're doing now.

597
00:42:25,543 --> 00:42:30,347
Is there something you're working
on right now that you want to talk about?

598
00:42:30,381 --> 00:42:33,651
Well, I have a...

599
00:42:33,684 --> 00:42:35,753
Well, I'll say this, you can
check back with me in about a year

600
00:42:35,786 --> 00:42:36,820
and I'll have more to say.

601
00:42:36,820 --> 00:42:41,058
But I've been, this year,

602
00:42:41,091 --> 00:42:44,995
planning to expand my video game channel

603
00:42:45,029 --> 00:42:49,600
to a broader production company, 
and I am starting

604
00:42:49,633 --> 00:42:51,335
to write original video game music.

605
00:42:51,368 --> 00:42:55,272
I'm starting to do actual...

606
00:42:55,306 --> 00:43:00,844
I mean, not actual, but arrangements
that are notated, that are, 

607
00:43:00,844 --> 00:43:03,380
I can put in PDFs and make portfolios of.

608
00:43:03,414 --> 00:43:09,119
And I am hoping that by the end
of the year, I will have 

609
00:43:09,119 --> 00:43:14,391
a little company name to plug on 
your podcast next year.

610
00:43:14,425 --> 00:43:18,395
But that is the place that I'm going.

611
00:43:18,429 --> 00:43:22,900
And I'm hoping it is a difficult
industry, it is a difficult economy,

612
00:43:22,933 --> 00:43:24,535
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

613
00:43:24,568 --> 00:43:31,942
But I've loved this project so much that
I am hoping that maybe you will see me in

614
00:43:31,976 --> 00:43:34,612
the credits of a real video game someday.

615
00:43:35,879 --> 00:43:38,582
Well, fingers crossed..

616
00:43:38,582 --> 00:43:40,651
We need some luck, but you know.

617
00:43:40,651 --> 00:43:42,386
[Laughs.]

618
00:43:42,386 --> 00:43:43,988
That's awesome.

619
00:43:44,021 --> 00:43:48,959
Okay, so I have a last question
to conclude this interview, and it's about

620
00:43:48,993 --> 00:43:55,666
people who might have influenced
your career or counted or motivated you.

621
00:43:55,699 --> 00:44:02,373
If you think of people who you cross path
with and you really said, Oh, that person

622
00:44:02,406 --> 00:44:05,776
really helped, who would it be and why?

623
00:44:05,843 --> 00:44:10,180
To be honest, I think that one of the

624
00:44:10,180 --> 00:44:14,618
most influential people in my path from

625
00:44:14,652 --> 00:44:18,889
musician to advocate or activist, 

626
00:44:18,889 --> 00:44:24,361
or at least active musician, in that sense, was

627
00:44:24,361 --> 00:44:30,734
the professor I had in grad school who
accused me of forging my doctor's notes.

628
00:44:31,535 --> 00:44:36,440
I was in a car crash in
my first semester of grad school.

629
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:40,177
I was in another car crash
in my second semester of grad school.

630
00:44:40,210 --> 00:44:43,547
Very bad luck just happens.

631
00:44:43,580 --> 00:44:47,618
You never know when
that's going to happen to you.

632
00:44:47,651 --> 00:44:52,623
I needed incompletes
because I couldn't use a computer.

633
00:44:52,656 --> 00:44:54,591
The lights were too bright.
I couldn't think.

634
00:44:54,625 --> 00:44:56,493
I couldn't string a sentence together.

635
00:44:56,527 --> 00:45:01,865
It was really difficult, really difficult
time, a lot of neurological problems.

636
00:45:01,899 --> 00:45:04,735
And it was April.

637
00:45:04,735 --> 00:45:07,704
It was the end of the semester,
and I went to my professors

638
00:45:07,738 --> 00:45:10,140
and was like, hey, I need incompletes.
It just has to happen.

639
00:45:10,140 --> 00:45:13,343
I can't finish the work.

640
00:45:13,377 --> 00:45:17,614
And I had one professor who
wouldn't give me one.

641
00:45:17,648 --> 00:45:21,385
And if I failed that class,
which I would have

642
00:45:21,418 --> 00:45:24,421
because my work after the car,
because of these car crashes,

643
00:45:24,421 --> 00:45:28,058
was not great,
and I couldn't finish the assignments,

644
00:45:28,092 --> 00:45:32,396
I would have failed the class,
which would kick out of the department.

645
00:45:32,396 --> 00:45:37,434
So I had one person, one person,

646
00:45:37,468 --> 00:45:41,672
whose doubt could have just

647
00:45:41,705 --> 00:45:43,974
derailed my entire career.

648
00:45:44,007 --> 00:45:48,145
I would have lost almost everything
that I worked for to that point.

649
00:45:48,178 --> 00:45:54,418
That one person definitely

650
00:45:54,418 --> 00:45:56,854
motivated me, I will say.

651
00:45:56,887 --> 00:46:03,427
That person, in a sense, gave me
the permission to see myself as disabled

652
00:46:03,460 --> 00:46:05,829
because I had not started doing that yet.

653
00:46:05,829 --> 00:46:08,999
I did not see myself as that at that time.

654
00:46:08,999 --> 00:46:14,571
But the moment someone saw that in me
and assigned that label to me and then

655
00:46:14,605 --> 00:46:19,676
used it for discrimination,
that gave me the permission

656
00:46:19,710 --> 00:46:22,312
I needed to say, You know what?

657
00:46:22,346 --> 00:46:23,814
I do have access needs.

658
00:46:23,847 --> 00:46:25,082
I do need to wear these glasses.

659
00:46:25,082 --> 00:46:32,256
I do need all of this administrative
support so I don't forget things.

660
00:46:32,289 --> 00:46:37,995
I suddenly had neurological problems
that I never had before,

661
00:46:38,028 --> 00:46:41,632
and I probably would have just

662
00:46:42,533 --> 00:46:48,639
shrugged and struggled along without that

663
00:46:48,639 --> 00:46:54,178
graduate advisor telling me that, well,
are you sure this is from your doctor?

664
00:46:54,178 --> 00:46:58,849
Because it just looks like you
copied the header on a piece of paper.

665
00:47:01,251 --> 00:47:02,519
Now I am here.
I am in RAMPD.

666
00:47:02,553 --> 00:47:03,921
I am on this podcast.

667
00:47:03,921 --> 00:47:05,722
I am very proudly disabled.

668
00:47:05,756 --> 00:47:08,692
I am happy to be part of the community.

669
00:47:08,725 --> 00:47:11,995
And as much as my teachers,

670
00:47:12,029 --> 00:47:18,135
as my family, as my cats have supported me, 

671
00:47:18,835 --> 00:47:21,038
someone pissing me off

672
00:47:21,038 --> 00:47:25,576
was actually a little bit more helpful

673
00:47:25,609 --> 00:47:28,912
than maybe I realized in that moment.

674
00:47:29,913 --> 00:47:31,014
It's very interesting.

675
00:47:31,048 --> 00:47:35,619
It's incredible that a negativity

676
00:47:35,652 --> 00:47:39,890
pushed you to become positive with

677
00:47:39,923 --> 00:47:41,658
everything that was happening to you.

678
00:47:41,692 --> 00:47:43,961
Well done.

679
00:47:43,961 --> 00:47:46,630
Fight is a very powerful motivation.

680
00:47:46,663 --> 00:47:53,136
I would encourage anyone who has
experienced something like that, use it.

681
00:47:53,170 --> 00:47:54,571
Use it to your advantage.

682
00:47:54,605 --> 00:47:56,340
Let it fuel you.

683
00:47:56,373 --> 00:48:00,210
Because I might still
be living in my parents house

684
00:48:00,477 --> 00:48:06,817
if I had let that person just walk
all over me, and if I had let her kick me

685
00:48:06,817 --> 00:48:10,621
out of the department, if I had let her
take those things from me, I don't know.

686
00:48:10,654 --> 00:48:13,757
I probably wouldn't have
all the things I have today.

687
00:48:13,757 --> 00:48:17,527
So let those things motivate you.

688
00:48:18,462 --> 00:48:25,602
Well, thank you for all
these bits of experiences.

689
00:48:25,602 --> 00:48:29,673
Really, it was very interesting
to chat with you about 

690
00:48:29,673 --> 00:48:32,743
your experience in this musical path.

691
00:48:32,743 --> 00:48:34,511
Thank you.

692
00:48:34,845 --> 00:48:37,214
Well, good luck for your big project.

693
00:48:37,247 --> 00:48:38,548
We are going to follow that.

694
00:48:38,582 --> 00:48:42,252
There's going to be a resource page where
we're going to definitely publish things.

695
00:48:42,286 --> 00:48:45,822
So yeah, hopefully it will come soon.

696
00:48:45,856 --> 00:48:50,494
And, yeah, for every other project that you have.

697
00:48:50,527 --> 00:48:55,632
Maybe see you in one of the RAMPD
events, maybe see you around.

698
00:48:55,666 --> 00:48:58,535
That would be very nice.

699
00:48:58,568 --> 00:49:00,103
I agree.

700
00:49:00,137 --> 00:49:01,571
Okay.
Have a great day.

701
00:49:01,605 --> 00:49:03,640
Thanks, Diane.
You too.

702
00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:05,309
Bye.
Take care..

703
00:49:06,977 --> 00:49:12,115
[Closing theme music]