What's up, everybody? This is Paula Phelps and you are listening to on a positive note,

where I sit down with a songwriter, recording artist, or music insider to learn how music can lift our spirits and heal our hearts.

Saved Bist and Katie Larson were shy high school students when a music education presentation changed the way they saw their future.

A decade later, they front a trio called The Accidentals and have earned glowing album reviews while packing venues with their live shows.

But because they've never forgotten how that high school presentation changed their lives, they also host and lead workshops around the country to inspire young musicians to find their voice

and use music to improve their mental health.

They're here today to talk about all those things and how they are changing young lives one song at a time.

Let's take a listen.

Sam and Katie, thank you so much for coming on a positive

note. Thanks for having us. We're excited. You have such a fascinating backstory of the way that you got

into music as your lifelong career. Can you talk about how you met and how that grew into your career? Yeah, Sav and I met, what,

11 years ago now? It's been a lifetime. And we were both, you know, really shy high school

students interested in music. And the thing that brought us together was our high school

orchestra program in Traverse City, Michigan.

And our public school had a great strings program, but most importantly, a conductor who was really interested in alternative styles and opportunities for young musicians.

So Sav and I were in a quartet together at one point,

but we also were in the alternative styles for strings club, which was this really dorky

group where we'd get together after school and play sheet music arrangements of Coldplay

and Led Zeppelin on our cello and violin.

So we do our little pop and rock music and folk tunes and jazz tunes and make our own

arrangements sometimes too.

And there was a duo called the Moxie Strings who came in to teach a workshop on improv,

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