As a parent and artist, I often think about what my children will take from our experiences as a family and within the atmosphere of our home. I hope they will absorb a lasting sense of freedom, curiosity, and wellbeing from our messy playtime in my ceramics studio. Perhaps they’ll develop a distinctive perspective based on the music drifting in from the kitchen. Establish a sense of belonging from our walks in the woods and afternoon concerts in the park. All these moments settle quietly into memory, only to resurface years later, in ways that none of us can predict. 

I was struck by such reflections after discovering Spanish singer-songwriter and guitarist Amaia Miranda. Her music carries a richness drawn from childhood impressions, serendipity, and quiet playfulness. These elements help to shape songs that feel both intimate and alive.

Miranda’s childhood was cradled by the sounds of her hometown, Bilbao, in Northern Spain. Add to that her eclectically musical household, family afternoons at jazz festivals, and local concerts coloured with the rich hues of flamenco. What makes inheritance so powerful is that it’s rarely about instruction. It’s about atmosphere and feeling. It’s like telling a child that this is important versus letting them sit in it, letting them feel the weight of a room and the goosebumps along their arm. Years later, when they pick up a guitar, that atmosphere still lives within them. Miranda’s music seems to sway within the very fabric of this memory.

But inheritance alone doesn’t explain Miranda’s latest album, Cada vez que te veo lo entiendo (Every time I see you I understand it). It’s more lived-in, more present, more grounded in the now. Miranda’s songs often carry traces of the rooms where they were recorded: a washing machine whirring in the corner, or the green parakeets of Barcelona — where she now calls home — chirping faintly through an open window. She doesn’t edit these things out. Instead, they become part of the music, reminders that art is never sealed off from life. These ambient sounds give the songs a sense of intimacy, as if you were sitting beside her while she plays.

This is what I admire about her art: she trusts the accidents. In my own practice, I’ve learned that the best work rarely comes from careful planning. It often arrives sideways, in a mistake I decide to play around with, or in a line I didn’t mean to write. Miranda embodies this. She reminds us that accidents are not flaws to be corrected but rather openings into something more alive.

Even the way listeners hear her work becomes part of this process of arrival. She describes this as her happiest album, yet some listeners who don’t speak the language may hear in it a lingering sadness that has been weaving through her first two albums (Cuando se nos mueren los amores and Mientras vivas brilla). That gap between intent and perception is another kind of inheritance. We never receive things exactly as they were given; instead, we mishear, reinterpret, and translate them into our own terms. In that sense, the audience becomes another beautiful accident, shaping the life of the work in ways the artist can’t control. Serendipity also plays into the ways Miranda engages with tradition. Her songs don’t just tell stories about family—they participate in a conversation across generations. (The album cover of Cuando se nos mueren los amores is a photo of Miranda’s mother, taken by her father when they were around Miranda’s age).

While most songs on Cada vez que te veo lo entiendo are sung in Spanish, two are written in Euskara, the ancient Basque language from her childhood. It is a language loosely bound deeply to identity. Straddling northern Spain and southwestern France, the Basque Country is both political and cultural. Here, Euskadi refers to the Basque Autonomous Community within Spain, while Euskal Herria encompasses a wider identity—uniting Euskadi, Navarra to the east, and the French Basque region across the Pyrenees. More than geography, it represents a shared Euskara language and heritage that transcends borders. When we hear Miranda sing in Euskara, we’re not just hearing a language—we’re hearing a lineage, the persistence of heritage, something intimate being carried into the present.

And this isn’t just personal; it’s cultural. Spanish folk music has long moved in cycles of forgetting and revival. One generation lets it fade into the background, while another brings it forward again, blending old forms with new sensibilities. Miranda joins that cycle, inheriting tradition but reshaping it through her own modern instincts.

Her music reminds me that an artistic life isn’t only built through disciplined practice or the right connections—it grows out of what surrounds us. Yes, 10,000 hours of practice can help you achieve technical proficiency, but ​​technique alone can’t convey feeling or create resonance. The experiences we carry into our work are what move us, and that’s what resonates with others.

As a parent, this comforts me. My children will not remember everything I plan for them. Perhaps they will mishear me. And maybe that’s the point. The true legacy of art is not about control but about presence. To be present in the room, to leave traces behind, and to trust that the accidents and atmospheres will carry forward.