Music Literacy w/Dr. Michael Georgieff and Ken Freed

Fascinating look at the impact music literacy can have on a developing brain. We also review KG's brilliant Kentucky Derby prognostication. 

Transcript

0:16

Welcome to the Kindness Chronicles, where once again, we hope to inject the world with a dose of the Minnesota kindness that it desperately needs. We got a big, big show today, but before we get to our main topic, I. It's just me and Kg. Hi. We're gonna talk some sports. When we talk sports, Steve, it's kinda like a torture chamber for him. It's not his favorite thing, right? It's not his favorite thing. And that's okay. He didn't even watch the Kentucky Derby. See, to me, that's more than sports. That's culture's a slice of Americana. Yes, you have to watch the Kentucky Derby. You really do. And shame on him. But maybe he had things going on. We're not gonna hold it against him. He's our, uh, he's our guy. But, uh, what. What a fun day that is. Well, let me tell you what a fun day it was for kg. So KG for those of you that are friends with him on Facebook, if you're not, make sure you send him a friend request. He accepts everybody, of course. But he takes these, these markers and he creates these placards. He refers to'em as a placard. That might be a word he made up. But this, no, they're placards. They're placards, they're, it's a heavy duty. Cardboard material that doesn't allow the Sharpie, which I and I use all colors of sharpies to. And they're calligraphy sharpies, I think, aren't they? They're the best ones. Yeah. With the fine point. Mm-hmm. And half the fun for me with whether it's covering the wild or doing the horse racing thing in the summer at Canterbury, is having the placards and coloring'em up. And it's funny you mentioned Facebook because I connected with some friends. From Faribault and they remembered when they saw my, my Kentucky Derby placards. They remembered my dad and I working the scoreboard for years at the Faribault Golf and Country Club. Many tournaments, but specifically the ProAm, always the first weekend in August. Huge tournament, big Calcutta with a lot of cash, and we did it all by hand and we did it with the calligraphy Sharpies. On the board. Oh. Oh yeah. So the artwork goes back to when I was a kid working with my dad at the golf course, and it's carried all the way over. I make placards for every single wild game I work. My, my counterparts, the young 20 to 30 somethings in this league, and I am a dinosaur. When you look around the league, oh yeah. There's like two or three of us dudes and it's all 20 something females and they're fabulous, but they, they use tablets to have all their stuff and I hand write everything. It's pathetic, but we call, so like you do show prep? I do, yeah. In the form of a placard. So you post on Facebook the horses that you expected to do Well. You had your favorites. You had second, third, and fourth. And while I'm watching it, I am watching the Master at work who wins the Kentucky Derby, but the horse that you expected, who came in second, the horse that you expected, the guy that came in fourth was the guy that I think that you had for third. So. How do you do that once in a while? You're right. You're wrong a lot more often than you're right. Oh, I know. I've, I've taken your advice. You've the track, you understand? Mm-hmm. And with the Derby, it's even harder because it's 20 horses. Any, any given day. A Canterbury with a 6, 8, 10 horse field, we're all gonna have three or four winners on a 10 race card. Derby's different 20 horses. I've been very fortunate. I, I was looking on, on the drive out here, I was, I was thinking back to Derby winners I've had because they're, they're not that often. Sovereignty being one of them. I've been picking or betting the Derby for 29 years. Wow. Um, actually is it more, no, I'm sorry. It's 39 years. We're going back to 1987 was my very first, so it's 39 Derbies. And I think my winners, who I had on top are still single digits. I think now it's seven or eight outta 39. So you were, you were handicapping horse races in 87. 87 was the first time I bet the Derby I, I, I, I went to Canterbury. You could simulcast it there in Shockee. The, the racetrack was kind of a new thing. It was, um, right after, I think. Either right before or right after finals, you know, 87, that, that was way back when we were in college. Yeah, and I, I, I took a horse named to BET twice and he led into mid Stretch and Ali Sheba ran him down. Well, it's funny because that year I, I didn't, for whatever reason, I wasn't outta Canterbury for the Prema, but I was out there. For the Belmont, and I remembered what happened, so I'm like, this isn't gonna happen to me again. And in the Belmont I switched and bet all Sheba and bet twice, beat all Sheba. So I was wrong on both legs of that triple crown. You're still a good person. I try hard. Yeah. So I, the greatest race horse in the last 60 years would be. 60 years takes us. Well, yeah. You're going back to Secretariat. So Secretariat. Yep. The reason I bring up Secretariat, it is my understanding that all 20 horses that were in the Kentucky Derby, you're right, were part of the Secretariat. Bloodline. Bloodline. So fourth, fifth generation, whatever it is, there was a tie. To Secretariat and, and I think the, the cool part of Secretariat is if you ever watch that 30 for 30 on ESPN about that racehorse, when he finally passed away and they were gonna bury him, uh, on the farm where, where he grew up in Kentucky, I. They did the autopsy just to see what made this guy so special. And his heart was two and a half times the, the size of any other heart of any other racehorse they had ever seen. Which means he just had a bigger engine That's, you know, it's funny, they called him Big red long before they did the autopsy. Crazy. Who was the second greatest race horse in the last 60 years? I would say Seattle Slew, uh, 77. I am gonna argue that it was Sham. Are you familiar with Sham? I am familiar with Sham and you could make a case for sure. So tell us who Sham was. Sham was the Stablemate of Secretariat, who unfortunately was born in 1970 and had to run against Secretariat in those triple Crown races in 73. it's funny, I was listening to, uh, Patrick Roy talk about horse racing. I seeing horses. Jesus, what are you doing out here, gorg? Can I, can I tell you my Patrick Roy horse racing story, please? Yes. So Roy wouldn't come to Canterbury often back when he was riding regularly, by the way. Thank you for saying often, not often. I don't know why. It often bothers me. It shouldn't. No, but it does. Okay, moving on. So we had a, uh, really cool, um, stakes program back in the early two thousands that ran all the way through about 10 years ago, called the Claiming Crown. It's moved on now to. Tracks like Churchill Downs and and Gulf Stream. It got a little too big for Canterbury to host, but we were the first track that took this thing on and it was the Breeder's Cup for the blue collar horses claiming horses. And it was big purses once a year for these claiming horses. It was really a cool program They'd ship in from all over the country for this one big day of racing and shakopee. So Royce always come out to cover the claiming crown. And it was always right about the time the Vikings were starting training camp in Mankato. So a lot of the guys would come out, cover the claiming crown and buzz down a Mankato to cover the Vikings Roy being one of those guys. So it was extremely warm in Shaka, be in this particular August and on claiming Crown, all of us that worked track on the broadcasting side wear a full suit. Oh boy. And it was. You know, close to a hundred degrees with the August humidity that we all know about in Minnesota. So it's a long day. We run 12 or 13 races, the day gets over and that's when Roy and all the scribes are like writing. And so I come up after the 12th or 13th race and, and you know, you and I sweat very similarly where it's a mess. Mm-hmm. So I get up there and I'm exhausted and I am dripping wet. And one of the guys in the press box says, how'd it go? And I go, look at me. This is how it went. I'm gonna tell you right now. And I, I stand up, I go look at my suit. I go, I can tell you one thing for sure right now. And Cy snaps his head around. I go. You wouldn't wanna be my boxer shorts right now. And Roy stops dead stone. Like stone faced. Hey Gorg, I don't care how much you're sweating on which day would I wanna be your goddamn boxer shorts. Oh, Roy. Oh, it was such a good, the whole press box, of course. Roaring at his line. And I'm just sitting there like, yeah, you make a fair point. Speaking of sweating, since we're gonna talk about sweating. When I speak publicly, oh, I have a bit of a situation. I start to sweat broadcast news style, broadcast news, and I just, I've decided, I've seen physicians about it and they're just like, and I don't feel nervous speaking publicly. No, you're real, like, you're comfortable. But this is, this is just how my body reacts to it. So I'm up in Brainerd speaking to a bunch of old gals, at an event at, uh. What's the place that the ladies always go to? Grandview Lodge, grand View Lodge. And I'm given a presentation, I got a suit on and I am just dripping wet. Just, it's just a disaster. And you know, usually you like when people are sweating, they're thinking, oh, this guy's lying. I mean, he's making up stuff. And you know, when you're in the estate planning business, right, you don't wanna be seen as the liar. So I make fun of the fact that I'm sweating this little old lady. Gets up and leaves and I'm wondering, oh, what? What's going on with her? And she comes back with a. Bath towel, a full bath towel. And I said, you know, really all I need is a WA washcloth. And she's like, no, you need a bath towel. She said, why don't you take off your suit coat? And I said, if you saw the disaster that was going on underneath this suit coat, you would understand why I'm not taking it off. Oh man. It was so miserable. Once it starts too, like once you're like, you start sweating once that, that. Faucet gets open, so to speak. There's no stopping it. It just, it just keeps on keeping on and there's nothing you can do. Steve Brown just entered. We decided to start without you, Steve, because we were talking sports and horse racing, and we know how much of a fan you are of sports and horse racing. But the good news is we are going to be talking to a couple of people that are involved in this program that, uh, that uses music. To help people learn. I know, I know. I can't wait to to hear about it. I can't wait either. It's interesting you're talking about sweating somehow. What was it? Well, yeah, yeah. We got into the sweater of sweating. All right. Yeah. We haven't You ever had a, a situation where I'm sure rock some places you've played Yeah. Where you're in a bar or, or a club where it's extremely warm. Yeah. How do you deal with that? It's really about getting, like playing guitar. You can't be wiping your eyes that much. Your hands are tied up, so, uh, it runs your face. You have to kind of wipe bandana some headband. Right. That's, that's why they exist. Yeah. How about like a, a Wilson NBA headband? Not my look, but have you noticed like Bruce Springsteen? Yes. Oh yeah. And girl, it's like a thing. It's, it partly is to protect their arm when they play guitar.'cause it beats up your arm right here. But also it's a, it's one of these. Boom. Interesting. Wipe across your forehead with your brilliant, puts a forearm thing. But yeah, I don't, I don't have that. Um, I maybe don't work hard enough, but I'm also not a touring musician, so, but you're kind of touring this summer. Yeah. You're touring five shows, dude. Yeah. May 10th. Let's get the t-shirt score. Come on. Huh? Let's get the T-shirts. Yeah, I'm working on it. Believe me, I'm working on something here. Oh, you got, you're gonna have, uh, swag. Not, not this Saturday merch, but some merch. Okay. I'm working on it. I love it. Yeah, that's big. So back to, uh,, the Minnesota Wild. Yeah. Season came to a conclusion sad, which is great because now we get to have kg in Yes. In the, uh, studio every once in a while. No more traveling, no more doing it from the road. Um, yeah, it, you know, listen, it's always sad when it comes to an end for me, and, and I look forward to like, I'm lucky to have two seasons. I've got, yeah, my winner for hockey. I've got my summer for the racetrack, and I am legitimately excited about Canterbury starting here in a couple of weeks. What made this season extra sad for the wild is I believe they were good enough. To make a run, and I think it'll happen in the next couple of years. But if you look at those six games against Vegas, all six were up for grabs. That's rare. Yeah. And, and they're one of the cup favorites, so the wild aren't that far away. And I get it. Minnesota sports fans are so sick of this because they've looked around the last couple of decades and seen the Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay Lightning, Carolina Hurricanes, the Dallas Stars, the LA Kings. You know, here we are in what we call the state of hockey and we still. Between the North Stars and Wild have yet to win a Stanley Cup, and that's really a shame. Yeah. I think Florida has four. I know. And Minnesota has zero. Zero doesn't seem right. It sucks, but they're coming. They're gonna be good. Well, I think what's interesting to us, to our listeners and to our, our whole campaign here is that we've, we've got to get reporting from you on some of the cool stuff that happens with the, within the team and some of the good people and the good stuff they're doing and how they're, you know, how they're growing as a team, uh, uniting and. The kindness is kind of coming out of it. I, I think that's been pretty cool to see even if, even if they haven't won. I like what you've been showing us with, uh, with some of these stories about the team. I think it's super cool. I just wanna say one quick thing. Somebody asked me what, you know,'cause with a month ago in the season, they were asking, you know, what makes this group special? It, it, it felt like when they were interviewing me that I had. A special affection for this group, and I've done the job for almost 20 years. I said, of all the teams I've covered, they've all been good guys. Yeah. NHL Hockey players by Nature are really a good bunch of people, but this was the most selfless group I had ever been around. And that does tie into our show. Yeah. And what this show was all about and. You look at the way they treat each other, the way they care for each other, and it starts with their most important players. From Mark Andre Flurry on down, Marcus Fello, Jared Spurgeon. These are salt of the earth human beings that do it the right way to the nth degree. And to me, that's what makes me believe that this group. And they've got a group, a core of this hockey team that I think is gonna take them to that next level. And I think a big part of that is how good they are together off the ice. They genuinely enjoy being at the rink together. And when you're together for eight months. Right. Grinding it out. You gotta, you gotta let people, you better have a group you like or you're never gonna have success. Yeah, exactly. Is Ryan Suiter still playing? He just got beat in heartbreaking fashion. Sorry about that. Um, with the St. Louis Blues, they led by two goals the entire game. Oh, that's Winnipeg. Winnipeg. You know, the two goals win. That's the worst lead by the way. That happened twice in game seven. I know. So all the grief I get about the whole two goal lead thing. Stuff it. Okay. I'm telling you, it's a legitimate thing in hockey. By the way, intern Jeff just rolled in. There he is. Hello intern. Jeff. Great to finally meet you. How you doing? Nice to see you all in studio. We're just missing Dempsey now. I I mean, I wouldn't hold it against him. He might, he might show up. He might roll in. He might. You never. Maybe next week. We'll, it's like a clown car down here. I'll assume the intern seat over there on the weight bench. That's, that's, that's exactly right. Where by the way, the temperature down here is perfect. Yeah. Speaking of temperature. Speaking of nice guys today I was at a luncheon for the Minnesota Police Chief's Foundation. Really cool. And Ryan Carter, who's one of your colleagues? Yes, he is, uh, was there and uh, he was taking pictures and stuff and of course I had to go and name drop couldn't be a better guy. He's a super guy. He's a very nice guy. But the talk about the heat, it was a town and country club. You know, they got enough money. You'd think that they'd be able to crank up the air conditioning a little bit. Oh no, not yet. It's not on yet. Maybe it was a torture chamber in there. I think we've, this is the week where we've crossed the threshold here in Minnesota where I think the first week or so, and maybe this was 10 days ago, you think, well, I'm gonna turn it on, turn it off, rotate it. No, no. We have crossed over now to where you turn that sucker on and it's not coming off until late September. So I'm gonna make a phone call. We're gonna call our guests. They're gonna be on, uh, Kenneth Free and Dr. Michael George. You better carry this one, Mr. Music guy over here. Mr. Music guy. We'll, we'll we do just fine. This is right in your sweet spot. We'll do just fine. Hold on for one second. Alright. We have Kenneth Freed. He goes by Ken. And Dr. Michael George, if Dr. George, if I have known for quite a few uh, years, he is the co-director of the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, and I've got, uh, the opportunity to meet Ken Free through, uh, of mutual friend Ryan Johnson, who married one of our au pairs, Ana. Oh yeah. And she, he knows, uh, Ken and introduced us. Gentlemen, welcome to the Kindness Chronicles. Great to here. Good to hear you. Well, we have, uh, in studio, we've got, uh, Kevin Gorg. We got our 55-year-old intern, Jeff Hoffman and Steve Brown. Hey, um, the, uh, the thousands and thousands of listeners are with us. Tell us about this program that you guys are, involved in., This is for little kids. and the idea is, to start learning how to read music, music literacy, because music, is a language that, people, you know, they assume when they see a soloist or something like that, that you know that they're memorizing the music or something. Start out. You know, you're learning to read rhythms, you're learning to read notes, and, so we call that a, a musical literacy. And, it turns, it's kind of like the method is kind of facing play. You are working with five different instruments., You're working with the violin, keyboards, recorders, xlophone drums. You're learning how to sing. it starts at age three. It starts in pre-K. But the important thing is not to perfect it, but to be fluid in reading. And what we found is that through, 30 years of research, that kids who can read music, read words better, read, numbers. Are probably socially, emotionally better, uh, adjusted as well. So, there's something to, getting people's, brains activated. And then building on that, you know, for academic success,, isn't there something to the fact that those first thousand days are the days that are the most important? Could you speak to that just a little bit? Michael can speak to that. Sure. So as, as you know, the Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, which is where I work, is, uh, considers that one of the most important periods, for brain development. When you think about our social, programs, and so a. The first thousand days incorporates that as well as the pregnancy because you know, your brain's kind of developing during pregnancy as well. So at that time, your brain is taking our, the baby's brain is using 60%, 60% of the sugar, fat, and protein. But a baby uses 60%, and by the way, that's still 45% at five years of age. So, you know, we talked about that first thousand days, but that period of maximal plasticity, when are you really primed in terms of your brain to learn stuff, whether it's language, musical language, early math, that kind, that's all happens before. So what captivated me about what, what Ken? Basically the number of words that you know by age three. Uh, and I think this applies to music too, predict how you do in school predicts your job capacity and your, your earning potential. So, so there's a lot at stake here. I just want to to point out the fact that, probably this brightest group of people that we've ever had, which, um, I'm in over my skis here. Yeah. And the other thing that you mentioned that I just have to make a comment about, as you said. We're using 20% of the fat and sugar and protein. If we eat more fat and sugar and protein, does that 20% continue? Is it like a, a percentage of consumption or could you just or, or am I just. Making excuses for why I want to eat donuts when I'm done here. He says, why you eat donuts? Because I think knowing you, you're already pretty sufficient in sugar. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. George is like 70 years old and he looks like he's 35. We're happy for him. Um, is this, I, I have an honest question. Is this why the Chinese in theory, have been ahead of us for so many years? Because don't they start their kids? I listen to that when, when a kid is two or three. And the, and the job potential, the earning potential, the learning. Don't they start their kids earlier, aren't they? Isn't it a more strict academic regimen? The whole Tiger Mom thing? Yeah. Well, and music, I mean, music is the, you know, Ken, what is the name of your program? It's, well, I, I'm from the center. Well, first of all, you know, I'm a lowly viola player. By day I play in the Minnesota. Oh yeah. Lowly. I get That's funny. You know, we, we only, we only play a couple of notes, you know, while everybody's busy. And then mostly we're farting around. But, um, the Center for Musical Literacy and Education is the group that I'm, I'm a part of with Dr. Larry Scripp. And, um, you know, it's, it's basically, uh, we call it music literacy. Um, you know, let me. And I was like, it's 1 5, 4, 3, 2, 8, 5, 4, 3, 2, 8, 5, 4, 3. I get that. Star Wars. Alright, so there we go. So she's like, shut up, this is legislators. She's like, I think music literacy should be mandated. I, I'm a musician. I think every kid should have to like, you don't get outta second grade. And tap out rhythms. But when we start early, we just like start with a picture of a bear and a monkey and a buffalo and an alligator. So I'm sure you guys are smart enough to like people be right. And you go bear monkey and a buffalo alligator, right? So you're splitting the beat up. So you're doing math right? Proportion and three year olds can do this stuff, you know? Mm-hmm. I mean, it, it, they're like sponges. Um, and I think Michael wants to study, you know, what, what's going on, what's the optimum age? And I think you're right. The Asian countries they invest in early childhood education, and I. But they were starting violin at H two. Wow. This is in the sixties. This ability to read and to read clefts and I, I conduct on the side, that's my side hustle. But the, the fact that I can read all those clefts, uh, sing them and conduct them, uh, has been, has been a huge joy for me. And I think,, every kid should be able to do this country and English, you know. Looking and decoding and, and, uh, and, and we did this program in Mankato. I just happened to be conducting the Mankato Symphony for about 12 years. And we did it, we for English language learners in summer school. We had kids from all over the world. Now they did not wanna be in summer school, I assure you. Mm-hmm. But they were playing recorder and violin and they were doing this, this little music reading, music fluency program. Uh, and they took off, you know, and everybody was like, wow, where'd they get this confidence? I have a question for Ken though. Go ahead. But, um, the five instrumentation, so, uh, Jeff, the intern here, I'm also a percussionist and jazz. Uh. Jazz studies, uh, minor up at UMD, but, uh, and got to play in the cool, so I love the improvisation, I love the teamwork aspect of it. Playing in groups. Do the, do the five instruments, um, are they just sort of given as a choice for a, a kid or do the kids get to play together as a team, so to speak in a group kids play? Yeah, no, great question. The kids play together as a team and then they switch off playing the different instruments as they're reading off the chart. So there is improvisation. There is, but they're all playing all the instruments. They're not quite ready for band or anything like that. Right. Or orchestra. But they are playing together and the, you know, there's the, the bass line and the middle line and the drums. And so they are, uh. So, yeah, it's a, it's teamwork as well from, from an early age because they're, they're mostly learning. This is not private lessons, right? I mean, this is like a typical connect. Yeah. Teamwork is important also for brain development. So in at MIDB again, we have a program called Flourish and, and this musical literacy is part of that, but another part of Flourish is something called play work. And that's the importance of recess. Another thing that is being cut by a lot of schools these days. And why is that important?'cause just like what Ken was describing in terms of playing music together, recess has a whole set of rules, you know, in a play environment, but still rules that kids, learn and learn to. Uh, recess play work, stuff like that helps reduce the symptom symptoms of a DH ADHD and probably prevents it in kids who are headed in that direction. So the argument here with music is again, building blocks as your brain is building during its most important and formative years, meaning zero to five. And, uh, and, and so that way music is not a luxury. We're not trying to find the next Joshua Bell or the next, Beyonce or somebody like that. What we're talking about here is something that is fundamental to how kids learn. I I have a 7-year-old grandson who's a whi with math, and, you know, I, we were trying to get him to take piano lessons. He goes, I don't wanna take piano lessons. Like, Parker, you're gonna get a lot better. Your math, if you take music. He goes, if I wanted to get better at math, I would just take more math. Yeah, well there's that. This is not a luxury to be cut because of budget cuts. This is fundamental to how a brain develops and the example of the Asian countries that was raised before is a perfect example. Well, we actually have an actual, like professional musician in our midst. Mm-hmm. He Well, you were paid to be a musician. Yes. You were. So Steve Brown was, is the lead singer of a band called Johnny Clueless. And if you were in the. In the Midwest, in the, uh, late nineties, early two thousands. He was kind of a big deal. Okay. But he was a drummer, so is that really? No. Is that, no, he's mal malty, multi instrumentation. Now he's, yeah, now he's the lead singer. You have, I can't believe how quiet you've been. Well, I, I've been taking all this in. Okay, so first of all, lemme just say. I love all of this. I love what they're doing. I love what that is. The thing, music is an amazing connector. It's an amazing confidence builder. And according to these guys, it's a neural path generator. It creates these pathways that you can open up and begin to learn things. And I have grandchildren. I'm always playing, singing things my mom sang all the time at our host. Singing, I think is very important. But I wanted to say, so I've, I have this dream, to establish, a band, camp thing, and for all the reasons that you're talking about, not about trying to find some hot shot musician. It's about getting people together, putting them in groups of like the bass players camp, and you get'em. They, they learn their instrument or get, you know, these are young kids. They learn a little bit, then they, then you get them together to form bands. Then you have a talent show at the end. They write songs, they write a song. What I think that's would be great for is to be great for confidence for kids. You get kids that are like-minded, kids getting together. They have to work together, they have to learn how to do something together. And, it would make them, whenever kids are playing guitar, they're in their room. They're playing by themselves. You'd be surprised, and I've learned this from being a kid, and I'm not a, I'm not, I'm a self-taught musician. I'm not a reading. I'm not, I don't read music like these gentlemen here. But, you get better when you play with people, even if you're both bad, when you play together and you have a focus. The confidence you get and the, the, the amazing amount of times you, you find a minute of something that sounds like something your confidence boosts well. And, and by the end of it, if you keep doing that, that's you, you can put out songs and you can, you know, you write songs and you work together and you perform and it's an amazing thing. And what I love about music is it's a place for you as a young person to belong. Yes, absolutely. You absolutely know. Not everybody is equipped to be a, a great athlete. Yep. I mean, KG you got a daughter that's, uh, at Eau Claire? Yep. Who is she's way into it. She's in the marching band. It is a great connector. It's amazing. Absolutely. How it has shaped her college experience. The confidence you guys are talking about. Yep. Um, it's re remarkable how it's carried, carried over. Like it's legit how the impact it's had on Annika's life. And there's something to be said about like we, I at Hill Murray High School have to bring up Hill Murray always. There was the band hallway where all the band people had to remember. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. But all those kids were in the advanced classes, I swear to God. Absolutely. There wasn't a single one of'em that was in the classes that proving I'm right. Proving them. Right. And just to piggyback on that, I had heard, and I maybe one of the two gentlemen on the phone can confirm this, Albert Einstein, when he passed away, they, his brain wasn't any bigger than anyone else's, but I know he played violin. And they had, yeah, connected a lot more neural pathways they had seen that he had made that. I did not know he played an so maybe I didn't know that. Yeah. He was a, he was an, he was an amateur. He was an amateur and he loved playing spring quartet. Wow. Yeah. You know what, I'd love to piggyback on this for a second, because we had a program called Learning Through Music many, many years ago, 20 years ago at Ramsey in Minneapolis. Um. When, so imagine this sense of connection. The, the classrooms that were doing music, um, were so cohesive socially that if somebody came in, like, like new to the class and started acting up. You know, they would be taken not by the teacher, but by other kids say, we don't act like that here. We use our indoor voices. We are respectful. We are. And so it's, it's all of these sort of built, like Michael was saying about recess. All of these building blocks of social interactions that, you know, teachers struggle with. Of course, you know, because I don't. Period. I just think they come from often from, from tough circumstances and are acting out. But that said, there, it's when you get together with, with other kids and you're engaged in something like this, it's almost, it's, I don't know, you know, it's like the, the Vulcan mind melt or something, myself. I mean, I think, you know, you all probably know that Minnesota's obviously very high up in terms of education among all the states, but it's also got one of the biggest, uh, gaps between, uh, the lowest and the highest in terms of academic achievement. So there's, there's a lot of interest at the legislature, uh, for, you know, when would defining when these programs would have their biggest impact. One, one thing to think about here is,, we have school lunch programs and that's a great thing. I was actually on the American Academy Pediatrics Committee and Nutrition when that was first done. Um, but it's a bit late. It's kind of out of the barn at that point. So the, there's so much of that brain development that is nutrition based. Same thing for musical literacy, language literacy that occurs. Either in the house in preschool, because formative. So how are these programs funded? Yeah, good question. We're wondering why we work from the legislature. We're gonna, the legislature we're asking for funding there. Um, you know, we found somebody who's gonna author an appropriation bill. Um, we're applying to, you know, foundation, we're gonna start having a lot of lunch and breakfast, asking people for support. But first, the first thing is gonna, you know, sort of superintendents and, and assistant superintendents, um, school, you know, there's this. I feel that this could be a really good, um, early childhood starter, uh, for, for building the foundation so that kids arrive in the early grades, you know, ready to read. The institute's interest in this John in particular is that we wanna provide the science evidence behind this. This isn't just, you know, mom apple pie and Chevrolet and g we l feel good about ourselves, but gee, it costs too much. But we can actually put data behind this to show you changes to the shape of the brain, changes to the connectivity of the brain, better behavior and all. At least I found dealing with, with agencies, you know, whether it's WIC or the legislature, that they feel empowered when they know there's a science behind this. So that, that's the role of, of the institute behind this. Dr. George, if, we haven't had you on the podcast and I'm realizing now that we should have you and Dr. Fair on at some point. Mm-hmm. But can you just speak a little bit to what is so UN unique about the Masonic Institute for the Developing brain? Yeah, I mean that's a tremendous resource that has, uh, that to be fair, you know, came on the heels of 20 years of work in something called the Center for Neuro Behavioral Development that was founded when President Brunick was the president of the university who saw that brain. And there are two particular times of plasticity, what we call plasticity or, or when the brain is particularly receptive, those first thousand days that you mentioned. And then adolescence. That's, that's the other time period. So the Masonic Institute is, uh, was founded, what do we open 2021, uh, in a gorgeous building on, uh, the old Shriners Hospital. It doesn't look old. It's former Shriners Hospital on East River Road. It together. The clinics of all of the subspecialists, uh, who, who see kids with neuro behavioral issues. They could be a pediatric neurologist, psychiatrist, psychologist, developmental pediatricians, all of whom are university faculty. It has a center for studying kids. Other ways that we assess behavior in kids who aren't verbal yet, for example. And then a whole policy division, the Institute of Community Integration, that's all housed under one roof. This was Dean Jacob to Dean Tolar of the medical school. It was his and Dean Qum of the College of Education's vision of putting all of those, those elements in one, in a one stop shop. our responsibility as a land grant university is to the citizenry and we think of us as a service center. We are here to dispense the science. We're here to push things down the pipeline. So Dr. Fair, and I would be happy to, to give you a lot more details on that, I think, you know, a lot of them. But, but to give the podcast, uh, uh, do a podcast on those details, well, it's, it's one of those things like I, you, you talk about the impact that music has on a, on a developing brain. And why aren't we hearing more about that? Because people have very tight budgets these days and because we've lost sight of the fact that music is not a luxury. Steve, you had mentioned that, that, you know, you grew up singing. Yeah. If you think back 150 years ago, or if I look back at my, my, my wife's family has settled here at Swedish immigrants a long time ago. There were pictures of everybody playing an instrument. Yeah. They didn't listen to music by a phonograph. There worth such things back then. They gotta make it and for Yeah, you gotta make it and everybody knows you much better, at much more proficient at. Both are just a receptive audience, you know, just listening to the radio or something like that. This has tried to turn that back to why did we evolve that way? Why? Why do we do that? And I can, like I said, we can show you the brain outcomes to say it was probably a fundamental piece of growing up and building your brain. Yeah. Was being a family that made music. Uh, and everybody participated. I know in Irish culture, um, they, they pass the guitar around or everyone is expected to sing along whatever it is that everyone comes with a song and it's, it's not a show, it's just a collective group of singing, and, and that's been happening for centuries too. Ken could probably talk to the fact that families would say, oh, you know what? We're missing a violin over here. What kid? That's what you're gonna learn. You're, you're gonna play. Yeah. A hoo nanny. I, I, I have a, I have a little different, uh, uh, view of this from the idea of school, because I learned when I went to school, I was already playing violin, but I learned to play trumpet, barone. Viola because these programs were there and I, I loved it. I just thought it was great fun. But I think what happened is somewhere along the way, music turned into enrichment instead of a necessity. Yeah, right. It, it was just something that you, oh, well that's it. Like Michael was saying, a luxury. The other thing that happened, it was like. Talented kids. Yeah. You know, and the talented kids are gonna get their own lessons anyway. And what, what got lost in this is that it actually, you know, and that's, that's why it's so important for the Masonic Institute to be able to, this is new, you know, kind of evidence. Those of us that are, you know, addicted already know. I spend so much time in Mankato that these small towns, where everybody pitches together and a kid can't afford an instrument or can't afford, uh, a, a band uniform or can't afford lessons, you know, the parents group is. That kid has kid, you know, the resources they need. But this is about putting it back into early childhood and saying, this is a literacy, this is, yeah, this is numeracy literacy. This is a necessity. This is not a luxury. It's almost a chicken and the eggs sort of thing where all of those kids that I knew that were in the gifted and talented classes, they were all musicians. Were they musicians because they were gifted and talented? Or were they in gifted and talented'cause they were musicians? you know what? That sounds like a great topic. That is a, that's amazing. Because they were taught music early and actually Larry has data on it. Everybody can do. Presumably everybody can learn to read, everybody can get language literacy and so on. Well, for the first time in the history of this podcast, I think that we all have to recognize that Steve Brown might be smarter than the rest of us. Well, now let's not go crazy. Come on, easy music. Let's not go crazy. I think we we're still fighting that same battle, and I, I'm gonna bring it back to the movies because that's who I am. Mr. Holland's Opus. Oh yeah. Like that was the battle. Absolutely. In that movie. Now, older kids at that point, but the value. Of that being a part of our curriculum and how it's mandatory. It's not a luxury. You know, these two gentlemen have eloquently put it out there. Like, this is something we should be fighting for in all of our school districts all over the state. Right. They could prove it too about strategy and, and I hate to do this because we're talking about people, but we really probably need to be very transactional about this. We need to talk about that. Our math scores are not all that good. Hmm. And we have a, to make that better. And if you do that, you'll have better academic achievement and those people will have better jobs and those people will be able to provide resources than for their kids in the next generation when we can put a number on it. That's actually another thing IB does, is we can put numbers on that. We can show what the economic impact of this would be. So you're saying musicians can save the world? Sounds like. Right. Didn't they? Ready with we are the World. See one of many bubbles that we have in the Flourish program, getting good sleep. It happens to be another one, by the way. Yeah. Thank God for melatonin. so one last question we usually like to keep these to 30 minutes we're over that amount, but. Do they still teach kids to play the recorder in third grade? Oh man. Painful. I don't know. It was painful, but now it, now it makes sense. John, I remember an earlier episode you talked about your, you were a good, you were good on the recorder. I was great on the recorder. I wonder if you still have, that was the extent of mine. I was good on the ukulele until the North stars lost to the Islanders in the 1981 Stanley Cup. And that unfortunately broke. Was the You broke? Oh yeah, I smashed, it broke here. Ukulele got uk. We gotta get you another one. I got big trouble for that. No, but all in all sincerity, do they still. Do you have recorder these? Oh, I'm sure they do. My, my, my daughters took it. Okay. And that was a few years back, so I think that's still a tradition. I'm still laughing about the fact that we have a Minnesota Orchestra member and someone brought up VH one behind the music, the journey par. So, sorry, I'm. Sorry, this is a very unsophisticated program. We didn't music when we were toddlers. We don't usually talk to Yale and Julliard guys. We're in over our ski, as I mentioned a few minutes ago. Well, anyways, you know what, we are very grateful, uh, Ken and Dr. George For you guys coming on with us. Uh, awesome. It's an honor. It's, uh, it's a great message, a great, a great teaching, great learning. We gotta work on this. It really is. And you know what? We're gonna be more thoughtful about the way that we abuse you, Steve. Please, you know, my contribution than my, you know, my children's contribution could be really helping your society later on. John, thank you. Thank you. Alright, well thank you gentlemen. Thank you guys. We're back and we're back. We almost. We, we missed the Seinfeld reference and there was several card. The bingo card was available. Several, many opportunities. Let's go through'em. Start with, let's start with the Pez dispenser, because when he's talking about being in the orchestra, yes. I'm thinking of George and the galley dated in Elaine and Jerry with the Pez dispenser. Which, which PEs dispenser was it? Oh, Tweety bird. Tweety bird. Tweety Bird. Tweety Bird. It's great call. Then he mentioned the institute. And then we've got George. Remember where she thinks he needs mental health and he's walking? No, no. It's the institute. It's the, he's got the King's outfit on it. He's got the King's outfit. Remember the. Uh, the, the hot dog that was, uh oh, he's not crazy. No. Let me take it. Ooh. Yeah. And then of course there was the conductor Maestro. Who is the maestro. Mm-hmm. And then that leads us to Tuscan. And I'm in your ear trying to get you to bring this up during the interview about the maestro. Should we call the maestro? Those guys, let's call them back. No, those guys were far too sophisticated to be on our show. You don't think they've seen Seinfeld? I think you held held your own. I thought you did pretty well. But the beauty of Seinfeld is it, it's a melting pot for all different walks of life. And it it, and I think they're old enough to at least get the reference, the maestro. Are you kidding me? Oh, those guys would've gotten it, for sure. For sure. They would've gotten it. I know. I couldn't stop thinking about it. Oh, that's funny. No, the past dispenser, in all sincerity, I, I've never had an appreciation for music like I have right now. Wow. I'm not kidding. No, it right away I thought of the Chinese. I'm like, this is why we are lagging behind. Like we don't take this serious enough and music continues to get kind of pushed off to the side and clearly listening to those two gentlemen. It's a big miss. Yeah, it's a huge miss for us in this country. But, but you think about quarter notes and half notes and you're learning math while you're learning. Well, there's a whole nother element of the circle of fifths and chords and how it all, uh, there, there's a whole chord progression that Steve can probably run circles around. I dont as a drummer, but you know what I'm talking about. I know. So just so you guys understand, I never read, I took some music classes in college and I, I took some things, some vocal lessons and stuff, but. In my neighborhood growing up, it was never about learning to read music. It was about creating, writing, writing a song and feeling it. Yep. And you feel it and you work on it until you get it to be something. So we took the long road to get there. Um, and I, and I'm, I am a little bit, uh, handicapped without knowing the language of music in a written way, but I can feel it. And I know, in other words, I know when, when things should go up and down, I could feel that I, I. Good. And there's a lot of great bands. I mean, I didn't think in the Gogos, there's a great documentary on them where they didn't know how to play the instrument. Fabulous. Yeah. But they, they put, uh, tape on the, on the neck of the guitar just to know where the fingerings were. And so you learned patterns on your, on the neck of your guitar probably. Of how to, how the fingering patterns. Absolutely. But what was happening behind the scenes, and I didn't learn this until music theory up in college, and I took a year of it and learned this, everything you were doing. The 1 4, 5 progressions and all that stuff. It all connects mathematically. And that's why you have all these different kinds of scales and things like that. Mm-hmm. It is. I mean, the people like Mozart, Beethoven, their geniuses, and they could probably run circles about math and things like that because of what they've learned with the instrument and it's all laid out on the keyboard. Yes. And their ability to do that was very important because they had to create all the different pieces. So all the orchestra represents. All those different sections, cutting up that math in that, in that piece of music, they had to know how to, to communicate that message. I just have to tell my bass player, you know, like, hit it on the, you know, you know, do this, do you know? I, I just had to sing it to them or play it or play'em with something I would record. So, so here's the question. It's all feel. Can Prince read music or is he all feel, I think he could read music. He probably could. He's kind of a genius. Yeah, he could. But So you're talking about dad, he feels two parts. There's two parts. And think about how did you learn how to speak your language. You'd learn, listen to mom and dad, and you know, as little kids, and then mimic them. And then we learned reading and writing. It's. The same process, but do you think Beethoven and Mozart could do a penalty kill the way that the Minnesota wild does? Well, it's a math equation. Of course they could. Yeah. It all comes back to math. It, they couldn't escape. Well, it's, but other than that, so let me break it down further. So I Miracle, one of my favorite movies, remember the scene with the, the Killers or the, the Herbies or whatever, again, kept saying again. Exactly. And blowing the whistle. I mean those muscle memory, those repetitive, and he's like, the Legs Feed the Wolf gentlemen and all those there, those Brooks. They're just working on different elements of, um, the fundamentals Foundation. Yeah, foundational things. Conditioning, we have to do the same thing as musicians in drumming. Its rudiments in, uh, guitar. And you repeat keyboard scales, you repeat Exactly. And then it becomes a language. Exactly, because then your heart comes out and then your plan, when you're out in the, you're, you've, as a goalkeeper, you took all those elements and when they were coming and doing a break away, you used those elements and pulled out your bag of tricks to make saves. It's the same process when he's up there playing a lick or someone said, play this tune you. You know, you can, you can improv or whatever. Right now, I couldn't tell you the chords to a lot of the songs that we play, but as soon you could still do it though. But as soon as the band starts playing right, it kind of comes out. Lyrics. I still sometimes say I forget some of the lyrics, but I can kind of jive through that in my, my, uh, our, uh. Our fan base. You get those red pants on. It's kind of a magic to the whole thing. It up, it is. It's like cock Girls in love with Lover Boy stage time. Hello. Great. Set memory. It just comes out. It's easy, it's weird. So do you have a set list set up for Saturday? Not yet. The dugout working on it. What, what song do you think you'll start with? Um, we're gonna start with a song that we hadn't played for. Many years. In fact, jj, my guitar player that we play with Yep. Has never played this song Live with Us, so, oh no. It's a song that I wrote in high school. Oh, cool. I sang it at the Talent Show. Wow. At Hill Marine. I won the talent show singing. I love it. Playing guitar by myself. A song called, you Know What? Typical, typical Talk. Typical Talk to Crank Him up at the dugout on a Saturday night. That's one of the oldest songs that I have, and we're gonna play it. I love it. Well, this has been fantastic. Yeah. What a great show. And now we get to go have a break bread together and let's, and we're done. Done. And off we go.