tVftBR on location!

Lauren here, reporting from the music school at The RLMU (link to a feature done by a local paper about this place, and please note that the "faculty member" talking in that video was, in fact, my trombone professor in my time here).

Sitting here gives me a strange feeling of mixed nostalgia and foreboding. I wanted to go in and see what's new, but the door was locked -- one of the excuses that I used to not practice on the weekends while I was here, but this time it's actually true.

I have been thinking of the grand lessons that music school taught me -- that music is a sign of culture, that teaching is not for the faint of heart, that Bach kills a kitten every time you write parallel fifths, that you do not mess with tuba studio. I did get my music degree while I was here, but only as a formality -- my heart wasn't in it after my second year, when I became disillusioned with the performance lifestyle and realized that I couldn't stand children enough to be an educator. I had the requirements to get the piece of paper, but I have (obviously) pursued other career paths -- through it all, music has always been here with me, even after I realized that it wasn't working out as a career possibility for me.

After all that, I think the most important lesson that this school taught me was:

If you love something, set it free;
if it comes back, it's yours;
if it doesn't, it never was.