Monk Musician
Calm Create Connect
THE BEGINNING
I was born into a world of rhythm.
Not the kind you hear on the radio, but the kind that moves through the trees when the trade winds dance. The kind that hums beneath the laughter of island people playing dominoes in their yards. The kind that pulses through the soles of your feet when you step onto warm island soil.
Before I understood language, I understood that there was a rhythm to the way we move through life—the way we breathe, respond, carry emotion, and find our way back to ourselves.
For much of my life, however, I lived in tension.
I learned how to meet expectations, carry responsibilities, keep moving, and appear composed even when my inner experience felt very different. Anxiety, perfectionism, pressure, and the need to prove myself often shaped the way I approached not only music, but life.
Over time, I began to understand that constantly pushing through was not the same as being well.
In some of my stillest moments, when I had no words, the breath inside me seemed to whisper,
“There is more.”
There was more than achievement. More than meeting expectations. More than performing well enough to feel worthy of belonging.
I began paying closer attention to breath, mindfulness, sound, silence, and the ways our emotional lives influence how we experience ourselves. Music became one place where those discoveries could be explored—not simply as a skill to master, but as a space for listening, reflection, connection, and return.
That understanding eventually became Monk Musician.
What Guides the Work
Listen Deeply
Attention before technique — sound, silence, and what sits underneath both.
Make Room for the Whole Person
Memory, emotion, and history arrive with the instrument. They belong here.
Return Without Perfection
Coming back to music need not begin with proving anything.
Practice with Compassion
Breath, rest, and curiosity as part of musical growth, not a break from it.
It is not simply about becoming a better musician. It is about discovering what music can become when we allow ourselves to meet it—and ourselves—with greater awareness, compassion, and intention.
This is my journey.
This is my sound.
And Monk Musician is an invitation to discover yours.
— Marisha Motta
FOUNDER, MONK MUSICIAN