Mira Housey Creates Pop Hits In Her Bedroom
Classical pianist-turned-pop artist Mira Housey writes, records and produces all of her music alone in her bedroom. Hailing from Metro- Detroit, Michigan, the singer-songwriter started gaining attention from her viral songwriting challenges, piano compositions, and production videos, enlisting the help of strangers and friends to provide song inspiration.
Mira wrote and produced many songs for other artists before launching her own artist career. In less than one year she has reached over 40 million people with her emotionally-driven, melodically powerful music.
Maria: How did you get into music? When was the day when you woke up and decided that this is what you wanna do now?
Mira: I guess it was always there. When I was super young, two or three years old, I was already drawn to playing piano. And my parents would take videos of me just banging on the keys trying to figure out a melody. And from there I started doing piano more seriously and doing competitions and I became obsessed with it. I absolutely loved playing piano. And from there I sort of naturally was drawn to songwriting, focusing around the piano as the basis of a lot of my songs. So I would say it started with piano when I was super little, and then it evolved into full songwriting.
Maria: How would you describe the genre of your music?
Mira: I love the idea of marrying different genres together to create a new sound. And something that was really important to me was to find a unique sound that I could bring to the table and classical piano was such a focus for me that I used that as the basis for a lot of my music. I would describe my music as cinematic pop with an r&b flair.
I do produce everything myself. I write, produce, edit everything right here in my room. I play piano and guitar. I'll create samples myself using my piano and weird sound effects using my voice. I use my voice actually, for a lot of sound effects and production in my songs.
Maria: What was your creative process like for writing your latest single «psychic» ?
Mira: So it's funny because I always do these three word challenges where a friend will give me three words. And I'll go home and write a song with it. And I was at a friend's house and we were in the studio hanging out. And I asked him for three random words.
I went home, wrote the song but I had this inspiration to go. One of the words he gave me was psychic. I was remembering how a friend of mine had recently been talking about her psychic and how it was really cool for her to hear what her future could look like. And it had gotten me thinking about how you can't predict the future. It's so uncertain and I wanted to write a song about not being able to predict the future while also understanding that that's okay. And sometimes things just don't work out the way that you want them to.
So I would say that was my inspiration.
Maria: Do you think your process of writing songs has changed in any way since you started releasing music?
Maria: Yes, I'm a lot more attentive to the meaning behind my lyrics and to the emotion that they'll invoke out of other people. Before I would say my writing was a lot more a stream of consciousness. Whereas now I'm very aware of creating a storyline that has a progression and makes sense. And I love wordplay. I love clever returns of phrases. And I would definitely say I use those a lot more now than I did before because I'm so much more aware of my lyricism.
I'm very grateful for the platform that Tiktok has given me. And I think I'm very lucky in the sense that it never felt like something I had to do. It was something I wanted to do. When I first started this, it was just because I wanted to share my art with new people and I had no expectation of where it would take me and I still have that mentality even now. I really enjoy creating and writing and getting to show that to people in a way that's fun and digestible. And with the challenge videos, I would say it really helps me creatively because when you put a time constraint on it you don't have time to get into the nitty gritty details of things. And sometimes I just end up outputting something that I never thought I would make. I'm used to pouring all this time and energy into making sure every single word and melody is perfect. But there's a beauty in accepting the imperfections sometimes and working around them to make something beautiful.
Maria: What is the message that you would like to share through your songs?
Mira: Definitely, I think a really central theme for my music is – you are capable of so much and you don't need to rely on the approval of other people to get where you want to go. I really want my listeners to understand that independence is such a powerful thing. And we should all strive to be the best independent version of ourselves. Because I think being able to create something for yourself is the most rewarding feeling in the world. And it's something that you'll always be able to do again and again and again for yourself, no matter what happens, having the confidence to go out there and make something of yourself knowing that no matter what happens, you'll be able to do it again. For me it is so comforting and rewarding. And I want everyone who listens to my music, feel that confidence and be inspired to take their lives into their own hands, too.
Maria:What advice would you have for someone wanting to follow in your footsteps?
Mira: Don't let anyone tell you that you can't. The only person whose opinion matters is your own, which we've all heard before, but I think it's something that is so true. And I think we say it so much that we actually forget what it really means. But truly the only person in the world who's going to stop you is you. I have been lucky to have such an amazing support system around me but growing up I did not have anyone else doing what I was doing. It was really hard. Being the only woman in the room my entire life and always being underestimated especially as a producer. I felt like everybody around me was so much further along compared to me. But then I realized that I didn't have to feel that way. Even if people were trying to make me feel that way. I didn't have to feel that way. So I would say don't let anybody make you feel inferior. Because at the end of the day, you're the only one who's going to get you where you want to go.
Creatively I didn't have many people around me who were doing the kind of music I wanted to do. I didn't know anyone creating pop music in my very small town. Choosing music as a career also wasn't a very common thing. At all. So once I started meeting other pop artists and becoming more acclimated to the environment of songwriting and pop writing. I started learning things so quickly and absorbing all this new information. Because I didn't even realize it was a normal thing that people did for a living. I was just kind of taking shots at the wall in the dark by myself for so long. It was tough finding that inspiration at first, just because I wasn't around it. All I had to go off of was the pop artists I found on YouTube. I remember watching these music videos and Taylor Swift's music videos and just thinking to myself, Oh, I want to make pop music like they do. But I don't know how and I don't know where to start. And I think what really helped me get there was just starting, like sitting down and letting me just try it out and see what happens.
I think the most important thing is just forgetting which option is the correct one and just picking one and starting and for me it was sitting down at my piano and writing a song even if it was terrible. Just trying it.
Maria: If you can have your fans remember one thing about you, what would it be?
Mira: That every single piece of my songs every single aspect of every song the melody of the vocal, the chords in the piano, the rhythm of the drums, they all are achieving a certain emotion and every aspect of every song is very is thought out in a way that is trying to bring out certain emotion. I'm a very emotional writer, especially when it comes to my chords and my melodies and I just want my listeners to remember that music exists to help us understand and process our emotions. And every amazing song that you come across is trying to achieve that in its own way and with my music. I want listeners to remember that the songs and the way you feel about them is important and should be celebrated and should be understood. Like I chose this specific chord because it made me feel this specific way. And so when you're feeling a type of way, listening to one of my songs I want my listeners to know that that was always the goal and that they should embrace that feeling. This embraces, the way it makes you feel that's really beautiful.