Composing Bonds

Fathers use music to lead their children in a variety of directions.

For example, George von Trapp corralled his brood into a singing septet and escaped an increasingly threatening Nazi Germany, a family tale eventually immortalized as The Sound of Music. How far did he take his family? It is only now that his 94-year-old daughter will return to the family home.

And Lee Ferrell took the pressure from performing off son Will, helping to lead him from sportscasting to sophomoric movie stardom. According to the son and Step Brothers co-star, his father's wisdom was something like, " 'if it was only about your talent, I wouldn't worry about you. But it's all about luck.' When he said that, it kind of took the pressure off of succeeding at something like that and demystified it."

Another Lee, Bill Lee, had a different vision of how his music would play out for his kids: "“I always tried to inspire creativity in my children ... I wanted them to do what they wanted with their lives." Which seemed to work out for son Spike, whose movies often feature his father's compositions.

Of course music doesn't only only build paths for the famous. It can be a connector from the first days of life as it is for Jeremy and baby Jonah Eichler. Or it can be a spiritual path for a daughter to understand her father, as Annegret Schmidt did upon hearing the compositions of her father, who she lost when she was five.

For all, whether alive, dead, famous or anonymous, music offers a way beyond words for fathers to move their children.