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I studied music at the most remedial level when I was a kid, through the Los Angeles public schools, with a little private instruction.

I had gone to the High School of the Performing Arts in New York City.

LaGuardia High School is a place of acceptance. You have every type of kid there, performing. The outcast girl would not have been made fun of in my high school.

I went to really good New York City public schools that had arts programs. So in junior high, I got into the drama department. From there, I went to a performing arts high school in New York City called Laguardia and I just kind of fell into the professional side by happenstance.

My older brother was a musical prodigy, and he got a scholarship to the Bronx House Music School. We moved to the Bronx when I was 4 to be close to his music school. Then I got a music scholarship myself, at the age of 6, but that was for a school down in Greenwich Village. I had to take the elevated train and then the subway to get there.

When I was four years old, my mother put me into a school for early music education where you get perfect pitch and harmony and composition.

I played in the percussion section 4th grade through high school - snare and timpani mostly.

A lot of my training is in classical theatre; I've done a lot of classical plays in New York and also at the Guthrie and here and there across the country.

I knew from a young age that I wanted to perform. I went to an arts camp called Brookdale Arts Camp, in New Jersey, from the time I was 6, and then I was a counselor there through high school.

I have visited schools that have music programs and those that don't. I see the way the kids act with each other.