Summer Vacation Instead of Music?
When I was a kid, from I’m pretty sure about the 7th grade on. I spent most of my summers doing music. For the first couple of years my mom sent me to a summer music camp which was a lot of fun, sadly it doesn’t exist anymore. I don’t recall her ever asking me if I wanted to go to the summer camp or anything, I think she just signed me up for it. And I’m totally fine for that because they were a lot of fun. In the 8th grade and 9th grade, I participated in a summer competitive marching band that worked really hard and rehearsed a lot, and then went on competitions and tours for much of the summer and I had a blast.

In 10th grade and 11th grade I shifted over to a drum and bugle corps which did much of the same and was a lot of fun as well. And then my 10th, 11th and 12th grade years. I was also super busy attending some pretty awesome Jazz camps. And I think it was my junior year that I did Berklee in LA which was a week-long summer camp which was a ton of fun and gave me a great view of what would become my college (in Boston though not LA). 

I made a lot of friends. I played a lot of music. Yes, a lot of it was also hard work, and I don’t regret any of it. As a matter of fact, I looked forward to those summers every year. Did I go on summer vacations? Nope. And I bummed about it? Not at all. Do I feel like I missed out or was left out? Not one bit. I think my summers were meaningful, memory making, life shaping, and fun. I am still friends with some of the musicians that I met!