Wearing a colourful dress, 13-year-old Emilie Barton sat on the piano stool next to her dad, Paul. Paul had been posting videos of himself playing piano online, but this time Emilie was joining him on the clarinet. Music Man readers who know Paul will know that in the early days, he went viral for his videos of himself playing the piano for his toddler. Now that toddler is all grown up and ready to follow in her dad’s footsteps. Together, the pair played a cover of ‘Somewhere Over the Rainbow.’
After a short piano introduction, Paul looked across at his daughter, and she began to play. It was immediately clear that she had inherited her father’s talent for music. Her clarinet playing was smooth and confident, as the pair crafted a jazzy rendition of the musical classic. There is no doubt that growing up around Paul’s music has had an impact on Emilie, and it is touching to see them playing together after all this time. The beautiful video received thousands of views in just one week.
Like many music lovers, my taste was heavily shaped by my parents’ love of music growing up. I found that seeing this in Emilie made their duet all the more emotional to listen to. It was easy to relate to her connection to her father’s musical influence, but to see how it has shaped her talent was even more special. I was especially touched to see the encouraging letter Paul had written to Emilie and added to the end of the video. Clearly, their musical bond runs both ways.
Of course, their collaboration makes it even sweeter to return to the videos of Paul playing for Emilie when she was only little. If any Music Man fans missed out on seeing Paul’s early videos, they will definitely want to watch the compilation Paul has put together of him playing for Emilie during her early years. The video now has over 6.1M views and shows moments of Paul playing the piano for Emilie from when she was a baby, all the way up to when she was 5 years old.
It is always touching to see a parent-child musical duo, but the fact that so many have seen Emilie’s musical journey progress from such an early age makes her duets with her father even more special. It is clear that Paul’s influence on her doesn’t simply stop at her impressive talent on the clarinet either. On Paul’s channel, there are now videos of Emilie playing the saxophone, flute, and the drums. There is no doubt that Emilie is set up to follow in her father’s footsteps and is bound to have a very bright future as a talented musician.