THESE INCREDIBLE FIRST-TIME RECORDING ARTISTS

What do you do when @MasaFukuda, your all-time arranger / director / producer / sound engineer  / and gatherer of amazingly talented singers / is on a book tour in Japan during the time when you absolutely have to record your new Father's Day song?

Well, you call your friend, Daniel Blomberg (musical genius and co-writer of this song) and he calls his friend, Dave Zimmerman, at Noisebox Studios. And then you think:

This is great! Now we have a track to sing to, and someone to professionally record the song, but -- just one little problem here -- we don't have any singers! 

What do you do then? Well, I reached out to some of the best kids I know. Kids who I absolutely love and have tons of confidence in: my piano students. 

I could imagine the conversation: "Hey, do you want to help record a new song in a professional studio for me?"

"On the piano?"

"No."

"On my violin?" (Some of them play strings also.)

"No. I want you to sing."

Silence. 

So yeah, instead of talking to the kids, I called their parents. And they said, "They'd love to. They'll be ready." Did I mention that I love the parents, too?!

So I literally gave them the music in time to listen to it and sing through it a few times -- ON THE WAY TO THE STUDIO. Yikes!

And with 3 of Daniel's children, 6 of my piano students, and a couple of their recruited cousins and a friend -- none of which had ever done anything like this -- we recorded "I See a Hero." Well, I should really say Dave recorded it.

And I directed them. Took me back to my days (and weeks and years) as a primary chorister. So much fun!!!

And they responded patiently to my every suggestion: You're singing too loud. You're not singing loud enough. You're flat. You're sharp. I can't hear that "t" at the end. WHOA! that was a lot of "t"!

Haha -- they somehow survived my musical pickiness and just kept singing. And smiling. 

And then when we were finished recording the whole song, I said, "Okay, now we're going to record parts!" Yikes again. 

Well, in the end, I think they did great. In fact, I think they were amazing! Unfortunately, I didn't get a picture of all of them, but one of the moms snapped a few pictures of a smaller group at the end.

Thank you, Blomberg, Washburn and Gunderson kids, and Kate, Maddie, Sadie and Ben. You are truly incredible! And the recording sounds great!

It's a blessing to know you. :)