For the past four years I have been very busy with a secret project. I've been helping my oldest daughter work towards being a Country singer/songwriter. I have driven her to lessons and performances, I learned about podcasting so she could host her own, helped her produce it, coded her webpages, cowrote music with her, provided tech support around the clock, and booked her gigs. It's a lot of work, and it hasn't always been fun, but it's been very exciting.
And exhausting.
Our daughter has been singing since she was two, performing since she was four, and in a dance troop at six. We have had to stretch and grow to keep up with her. When she was twelve we decided to help her pursue her dream. Podcasting was only a few months old, and I knew it would provide a unique opportunity for my girl.
We felt early on, though, that the internet was an unsafe place. Experiences in our past had taught us not to trust the world. Yet, here we were with a daughter who wanted to share herself with that same, dangerous world. We decided we would do the podcast as well as promote her locally, but we wouldn't allow her to reveal her location or show her face on the internet. For the first year we even let her subscribers think she came from the East coast (we adjusted for the time zone difference when posting to continue the illusion).
Meanwhile, we signed her up for voice lessons and let her perform around Utah. She grew in confidence and skill, learned about the music industry (something I demanded she research) and podcast about all of it.
Over time, however, I found myself at odds with my own edict that she not expose her ID publicly. The problem for me was that I am very transparent online (you may have noticed), and the one thing I thought people would find truly fascinating about what I do with my time had to be kept secret. This drove me crazy. She was so good, and we were doing such cool things together, that a part of me died inside every time I had to keep my lips sealed.
It with great relief and pride that I break the seal today.
Bri'anna Joy turned seventeen the other day, and several months ago we decided it was time to let her go public. She is more mature now and capable of handling the odd freak here & there, and she wanted to take her podcast in a direction that truly excited her for the four year anniversary: video
You can find more about her at BitzofBrin.com. There are links there to her MySpace page and her podcast. I encourage you to check her out and let her know what you think.
And now I present to you Bri'anna's first video podcast. We had a lot of fun putting it together. I hope you enjoy it.
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