"This is definitely an album the kids will go wild for and to make it better, it’s an album that won’t drive their parents to distraction when the songs are played on repeat." ~Music reviewer Andrea Guy
About Bryant Oden: Info about Singer/Songwriter Bryant Oden
Bryant Oden snowshoeing in SW Colorado.
Singer-songwriter Bryant Oden started writing songs when he was a kid growing up in Oklahoma and spending his summers in the Colorado Mountains. Some songs were funny, and others were straight from his heart. “None of them were very good. But that process of being in a creative mood and writing a funny song, and also of walking in the woods and having a real heart song come to me, that has never really gone away.”
Bryant graduated from Oklahoma City University and soon after moved to the Denver area, to be closer to the mountains. Over the years, he has had a variety of livelihoods, ranging from spending four years as a child care counselor and supervisor at a treatment center for children, to teaching English as a Second Language at the college level, to being a self employed internet entrepreneur. He also earned a Master’s degree in Educational Psychology, with an emphasis on teaching English as a Second Language.
His focus on recording and sharing his children’s songs is a recent development. “Once in a while I would sing songs at family or social gatherings, and I had a few concerts here and there, but that was about it. I have always loved writing and sharing songs, but it never seemed like a realistic way to pay the bills, so it was always in the background.”
Over the years, people would sometimes suggest he make a CD of his children’s songs, and in the fall of 2008, he finally started the process. “After hearing someone say again I should record my kid songs, I just decided to go for it. I thought I would record maybe eight or nine songs. 6 months later I’ve recorded over 30, most of them newer songs that came to me once I started recording. So this has become a much bigger project than I had expected!”
Bryant started putting his songs on Youtube in January, and his Youtube channel now has around 2,000,000 video views. In March, a popular 14 year old Youtube filmmaker made an animated video of The Duck Song, and it received over a million views in the first month. There are now dozens of Youtube videos of kids singing along to the song or making parody videos of it, some are using it as their cell phone ring tone, and it’s been on the iTunes top 100 chart for children’s music. ”It’s been fun to kind of have an internet hit lately, but it’s the nature of Youtube that videos usually fall as fast as they rise, so I’m more focused on the longer term.”
And what does that longer term look like? “Well, now that I’ve finished up the CD, I’ll be focusing on spreading the word about it for a while. After that, I hope to keep writing and recording more kid songs, as I’m able to, and do more concerts and events. I really enjoy creating and sharing both kinds of songs: the fun and funny songs, and the ones that come from a deeper place. And it’s been a nice surprise to me that based on the comments on Youtube and on my site, some of the songs I have looked at as kind of silly are actually spreading smiles and laughter and sometimes really change someone’s mood or even get them through a difficult time.”
An Example?
“Well, last week there was a comment from a boy who’s cat had died, about how the song “Songdrops” helped him get through it. And just the other day- and this was really unexpected- there was a comment on Youtube from someone who said they were inspired by the Duck Song to give up an addiction. So that kind of thing is a really nice suprise. So, in terms of future plans, hopefully I’ll be fortunate enough to keep on creating and recording and sharing songs.
To contact Bryant, email: Bryant@Songdrops.com Media page
Singer Songwriter Bryant Oden
- Singer-Songwriter Bryant Oden, Fall 2009- pic 2
Bryant Oden playing guitar in the Rocky Mountains
(For this picture, I was standing on a wide rock that was larger than it looks, so i was much safer than the picture makes it seem. Of course, mountain cliffs can be dangerous.)
Photo 1: by Dirk Oden. Photo 4: by Gay Freebern
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