It sounds like a riff: soft notes of wind through leaves, staccato pricks of rain, thudding crescendo, gradually quieter.
There's even a note of amusement: the defiant humour of someone on their way to the scaffold.
"After years of consulting with Microsoft, I was suddenly persona non grata," Tom DeMarco told me, with a note of amusement in his voice.
The 14-year-old middle school student became friends with the second person in line, 28-year-old Katie Aiani, when they went to a soft opening of the amusement park.
On the phone, Charles sighed, a long, soft note.
Christopher Hitchens began his memoir, "Hitch-22," on a note of grim amusement at finding himself described in a British National Portrait Gallery publication as "the late Christopher Hitchens".
They actually do a lot of soft notes, but these are difficult to hear.
One person died in a riot at Scollay Square, a center of amusement halls and theaters.
"Their economy is a shambles, their social security systems are in disarray, but the point is we must not upset them," she said, with a note of exasperation as well as amusement.
But deep within our amusement may lurk a note of condescension, an implication that this is what distinguishes children from grown-ups.
A low murmur of amusement reverberated.
