"Music Finds Us Again."
Every once in a while, a student shares something that reminds me why music exists beyond practice, beyond progress, beyond performance.
Mervi recently reflected on an experience that went far deeper than learning how to cover a song. As she revisited "What a Wonderful World," she found herself reconnecting with a moment from her past — a memory of loss, vulnerability, and quiet grief, paired with the song playing in a hospital corridor.
Moments like that don’t live in the intellect.
They live in the body.
In the heart.
Music has a way of finding us again — sometimes years later — and meeting us exactly where we are. It doesn’t erase what we’ve lived through, but it can gently soften what we carry. It can remind us that beauty and pain can exist in the same breath… and that neither one cancels out the other.
What moved me deeply about Mervi’s reflection was the way she described rediscovering the softer, more conversational side of music — the part that listens before it speaks. The part that doesn’t rush to impress, but dares to be present. That awareness is the doorway to real expression.
So many musicians feel pressure to prove themselves through intensity — faster tempos, louder dynamics, bigger moments. But music was never meant to be a performance of worth. It’s meant to be a relationship. A conversation between you, the instrument, and the story you’re telling in sound.
There was also something profoundly beautiful in the way Mervi spoke about honoring the original voice of a song while allowing her own to be present. That balance — reverence without fear, expression without ego — is where music becomes honest.
This is why I believe music isn’t just something we learn.
It’s something we return to.
We return to it in moments of joy.
We return to it in moments of grief.
And sometimes, we return to it years later, only to find that it has been quietly waiting for us all along.
If you’d like to read Mervi’s full story in her own words, you can find it here:
👉 https://www.ridleyacademy.com/blog/Ridley-academy-student-success-mervi
With gratitude,
Stephen Ridley
