When Lauren Parrish was 10, she walked into Mason Music for the first time. She was interested in music but wasn’t quite sure where it would take her. As she sat down with her first teacher at Mason Music and began playing the piano, she didn’t know where she would end up 7 years later. For some people, music is a hobby and a fun way to escape from work, school, and life in general. For Lauren, music IS work, school, and arguably the most important part of her life. For Lauren, music is everything.
Seventeen-year-old Lauren has come a long way from that eager and unsure student. She is now on her way to a college degree in musical theater and has been in every school play, sang in choirs, and continues to learn and practice her craft daily. She has spent 7 years with Mason Music – 6 years playing the piano, and 1 year of voice training. In all that time, she has become more than just a talented musician. She is now an advocate for the ways music can shape you, encourage you, and inspire you.
A lot of Lauren’s inspiration came from the people around her. Many of her years at Mason Music were spent with Collin, a talented piano and guitar teacher who plays in a local band, JUCO. For Lauren, it meant a lot that Collin gave her the freedom to play the songs she was passionate about, and his talent and experience as an active band member gave her insight into how a career in music could be a possibility. As she began pursuing musical theater at school, she started considering her need for a bit more vocal training, so her 7th year at Mason Music brought a switch to a new teacher, Jess. Even though Jess and Lauren have only spent a year together, their bond is special. Jess has helped her hone her vocal talent, prepare pieces for her college applications, including a big college audition at Auburn. Lauren’s teachers have been a source of inspiration and encouragement for her, and to us at Mason Music, stories of our students becoming their own motivated musicians are our greatest joy.
As Lauren’s skill has grown, she has discovered her own tastes and found an appreciation for the musical community she is a part of. She originally considered traveling to New York to go to school, but as she began to think about the community here in Birmingham, she started to realize how vast her network was here in town. There is something so valuable about community, and Lauren understands how important it is to be able to network, collaborate, and grow alongside other musicians. Her music tastes reflect her passion for this community; she primarily listens to local and regional bands, most of whom she’s seen live. Some of her favorites include Stuck Lucky, Flying Raccoon Suit, Lipstick Stains, and one of our very favorites at Mason Music: JUCO. For Lauren, music is a means for connection, and her friends connect through exploring their own personal styles and meshing them together.
Lauren wants people to know that music is accessible and that there is no standard of perfection in music. There’s always room for mistakes and growth can’t exist without challenges. As Lauren shared her story, she emphasized that “you will never know everything you need to know about music. There is music for any range of emotions … because it’s a fluid art form.” In 7 years, Lauren has begun to sound less like a student of music and more like a teacher, and she has begun to consider how she can give back to the community that has helped build her. She has goals of teaching her own students soon and hopes that Mason Music might be a place for her to teach kids that were just like her 7 years ago. We think Mason Music would be pretty lucky to have a teacher like Lauren!
