In this episode of ALPS In Brief, our Risk Manager Mark Bassingthwaighte sits down with University of Montana Professor Jeff Brandt to talk about synthesizers, AI, and his class on the history of rock and roll. — Transcript:  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Hello, I'm Mark Bassingthwaighte, the Risk Manager here at ALPS, and welcome to ALPS In Brief, the podcast that comes to you from the historic Florence building in beautiful Downtown Missoula, Montana. As many of you know, I have been in Florida now for a number of years, but I'm back at the home office here, and we have a special event every two years where we bring in a lot of our bar associates from various bar associations around the country. Then we have some special speakers that come in and talk about all kinds of things.  I have just finished attending a presentation given by Jeff Brandt, who is a professor here at the university and does a course on the history of music. I got to say, in all honesty, folks, I wish you could all have been here. This was one of the most fun, creative presentations I've seen in a long, long time. Jeff, it's a pleasure to have you here. Before we get started, can I ask you to take just a little bit of time and tell us about who you are?  Jeff Brandt:  Okay, so I was born in Sitka, Alaska, which is a tiny, well, it's a big island actually, but a tiny town on a big island in Southeast Alaska. Average rainfall there is about 96 inches per year, so it's a Pacific Coast rainforest.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Right.  Jeff Brandt:  I went to college in Tacoma, Washington at Pacific Lutheran University. Taught private percussion lessons after that for about 20 years. Somewhere in the middle or somewhere in there, I got my graduate teaching degree. Then we ended up in Missoula, Montana as a result. Then by happenstance, the History of Rock & Roll as a course fell into my lap.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  That was an established course before you got here?  Jeff Brandt:  It was.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Jeff Brandt:  Yeah. There were a lot of people that have taught it prior to me, but when I was given the opportunity to run with it, it was one of the first online courses developed at the University of Montana, and that's really when I dug in because I knew that teaching it in an online setting, I was going to have to be more aware of the points I was trying to get across and how they were delivered. I dug deeper and deeper into the historical aspect of the course, and then I just started creating these different slide programs. Now I'm on my third set of slides and I think it's my final because they're so good now I don't want to mess with them, but that's my brief history.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I didn't realize this is online. Could anybody get online and just take this course?  Jeff Brandt:  Anybody can take it online. I'll give my spiel about online education, to be honest here, is I think online education is good if you have time to do it. I think in-person education, generally speaking, is better.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  I would agree with you.  Jeff Brandt:  There are so many different resources now for people to learn. Just with YouTube alone, you can go down an endless pit of stuff on one member of one obscure band, it seems.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Yeah.  Jeff Brandt:  Yeah. Mine is one of the many resources out there.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  You're welcome to share. Folks, I'm telling you, if you have any interest at all in the history of rock and roll and want to have some awesome fun, this is a course I would encourage you to take and see. I didn't realize. How might folks find this?  Jeff Brandt:  Well, you go to the University of Montana. I believe you have to register as a student.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  Okay.  Jeff Brandt:  You think that I would know all the hoops you have you have to jump through.  Mark Bassingthwaighte:  No, that's fine.  Jeff Brandt:  You have to jump through several hoops and then you can t