One of my favourite memories from my kids’ early childhood is watching from the kitchen window while they played in the garden.
They would do a variety of things back there; hide stuff, play on the climber, fill the kiddie pool with water and leaves to make “soup.” But I liked it best when they would do things that they thought of as helpful. They might choose to rake the leaves or water the plants. Or once they worked together very intently for a good long while on a “flower garden” by the fence. This was mostly digging without much of a plan, but it was also humming mindlessly, talking to each other, and losing track of time on a summer’s afternoon.
In other words, timeless childhood stuff.
Catalan composer Federico Mompou has a lovely set of pieces called Scenes D’enfants that capture moments like this in a wonderful way.
What makes this a beautiful song:
1. The opening chords sound like the wavy, blurring lines used in movies to indicate a flashback.
2. Those chords are followed at 0:12 by the sounds of kids splashing and playing.
3. The parallel fourths starting at 1:22 are silly but melodic. It makes me think of kids pretending to do something very grown-up.
Recommended listening activity:
Wearing clothing that’s much too big.