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Music about childhood (and the woes of the world)

nicholasryankelly

Updated: Jan 26

TL;DR - Creating music and other art from a child's perspective--but for general audiences--is both creatively difficult and societally worthwhile.


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When I was studying composition at university, a classmate once said something that has stayed with me: “If young children understood the craft of music, they'd be able create more imaginative, emotionally resonant music than most adults.” Now that I'm the parent of a young child, I’ve been reflecting on how tapping into our inner child can improve our creativity—and how childhood-inspired art can deeply impact adult audiences.


I think it’s natural to want to create from a childlike perspective. Kids are fully present in everything they do, and they feel everything. They let it all in: it's the only way they know how to be. They know the world is full of wonders and terrors.


Lately, I've been trying to take it a step further, and compose from a child’s point of view.* This is difficult for adults, as most musical interpretations of children's poems tend to be either flippantly lighthearted or tritely sentimental. (I'm still working on finding the right balance in my own compositions.)


To truly engage with the experience of childhood in creative work, it seems like we must allow ourselves to embrace the raw vulnerability and heightened emotions that come with it. This can be terrifying, especially since many of us were taught in childhood to suppress or avoid our emotions rather than healthily confront them.


This brings me to a broader point: creative works that authentically connect with the inner child are both socially relevant and necessary. They encourage audiences and artists alike to revisit that vulnerable, often forgotten place within themselves. These works normalize the overwhelming and sometimes terrifying nature of childhood—and remind us that, as adults, we still carry those experiences with us. Such art may offer a path toward healing for adults (not to mention a reminder to approach the children in our lives with presence and grace).


After all, how many of our society's problems stem from wounded inner children? When we look at the wealthiest and most powerful people today, it seems like the world is run by scared little boys who have buried their trauma beneath aggression and bravado. It doesn't have to be that way--and change often starts with art.


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What are your favourite creative works (for any age group) that engage sensitively and genuinely with the inner child? I've been profoundly influenced---more emotionally than technically---by Knoxville, Summer of 1915 by Samuel Barber (based on a text by James Agee).


And the children's poetry by Shannon Bramer (currently living in Toronto) is wonderful---she writes for children with the same presence, intentionality, and depth as in her adult poetry. (That really shouldn't be such a rare thing, should it?)


I've set 5 of Shannon's poems now. I'm pretty sure the owl in "Owl Secrets" is the child narrator's mother, whose late-night wakefulness is a warm, assuring presence even when the child is sleeping. It's fitting, then, that I composed this musical setting late at night when my own child (not even a year old at the time) was asleep in the next room.


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*Is this a fool's errand--or even problematic--because I'm not a child myself? That's a conversation unto itself, but obviously my short answer is "no". The fact that we were all once children---and carry our childhoods with us in largely-unacknowledged ways---underlies the whole point of this post. 

Also, young children are one of the few marginalized groups that can't speak for themselves in a way that the world at large will take seriously. So maybe it's incumbent upon us as parents, teachers, and caregivers in the creative arts to listen seriously to the children in our lives, and to use our work to advocate for them. Again, another conversation (that's very worth having).

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