Miranda Fling started singing at a very young age. She has notebooks from elementary school
full of silly childhood lyrics. Miranda never shared this side of herself with the world until the past
two years. Although new to the scene, success came quickly. Miranda won the Sonic Spotlight
in 2020, landing her a spot on the virtual stage with some of the biggest music names at the
Colorado Sound Radio fifth birthday bash. Miranda also released her self-recorded, self-written
freshman album, Wishful Thinking, on March 1, 2021.
Miranda couldn’t meet with producers face-to-face during quarantine, so she set up a studio in
her closet and started experimenting. “I just have a Mac book, and I lived in a basement
bedroom with a little walk-in closet. I took all my stuff out of the closet and set up my Mic, my
Mac book, and some lights. I don’t have anything besides my headphones, my microphone
interface,” says Miranda. “I had to make sure it was soundproof enough. It was a really creaky
old college house, so I definitely had to wait until my roommates were not jumping around
upstairs.”
Miranda captures moments of inspiration on voice memos on her phone. No matter when the
moment comes, she tries to record it and build on it later. “A lyric pops into my brain, and
usually I try to put that to some sort of melody. And my first step with recording is usually trying
to find some sort of chords that go along with it, laying the chords down, then laying one vocal
track down. And then from there, I try to build with harmonies and background vocals as much
as I can because I feel pretty limited in my instrumental capabilities,” says Miranda. “Typically
just goes from phone-voice-memo, then I try to record a little demo on my laptop and just build
from there.”
Miranda finds the most critical step in her writing process is to listen. She listens with a very
critical ear and tries to imagine the song in various scenarios. She lets it come to life a bit,
building the song piece by piece, editing, and processing as she crafts the tune. The process is
unique, but she feels it helps her get the song’s vision to listen to the recordings. “A lot of times
I’ll completely change it. But it definitely helps me. I play it in my car sometimes and say, okay,
what could be better? Where do I want this to go? And then sometimes I end up combining
lyrics from another song and just making it into one.”
This past year, Miranda has been focused on this process. Her first song came when COVID
started, and she just kept receding into her room. The process has been long, and she finally
ended up knitting together five of her favorite songs for Wishful Thinking. “There’s no song
called Wishful Thinking, but a lot of my songs come from a place of living in this reality that’s
never actually going to happen or wanting something that I can’t have,” says Miranda. “Probably
like 70 percent of my songs are about some dumb boy that I don’t like anymore, but I just like
the emotion behind it. The drama that’s in my heart, I guess, comes out in my music because I
don’t really super open up about it any other place. So it just comes out like 10 times bigger in
my music.”
Before the full album release, Miranda had two songs on Spotify; she heard about the Sonic
Spotlight, a virtual music showcase for youth ages 22 and younger in Larimer and Weld
counties and gave it a go. She is new to the music industry but took a risk. Miranda submitted
her songs. To her surprise, she landed in the top finalist and won the whole competition.
The Sonic Spotlight is a partnership with the Bohemian Foundation, The Colorado Sound, and
the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery. The goal was for participants to work with industry
experts, connect with creative peers, receive radio airplay, create a professional music video,
play festivals, win prizes, and level up their music.
“I wasn’t really sure what to expect. ‘Cause I was very new to the Fort Collins music scene. I
didn’t realize how many talented people there were and how many cool bands are here,” says
Miranda. “It was really awesome for me to learn about all of that and make connections with
really cool people who are my age and who are trying to do the same thing, just making their
music on their own. They taught us a lot about how to make connections, how to market your
stuff, which I’m still really uncomfortable sometimes doing.”
Upon winning, Miranda got to perform a virtual concert for The Colorado Sound Radio, a
fundraiser for NIVA Save Our Stages Act, and viewed it on their website. Winning Sonic
Spotlight got Miranda an entirely produced music video as part of the 53:14 Music Video
Experiment, a full day of recording at Stout Studios, a $500 gift card for Music Go Round, and a
performance in the FoCoMX music festival.
As for what advice Miranda has for someone in her shoes, “A little bit of push goes a long way. I
think that it took a long time for me to realize that people are actually interested in what I have to
say,” says Miranda. “And they do support me. It’s easier to build a community than maybe you
initially think, especially in Fort Collins. So I guess my advice would be to share it. Just put it out
there.”
Miranda is just getting started. Her immediate success shows that she has what it takes to really
make something happen. “I have a lot of ideas, and I feel like I’m always thinking of new things,”
says Miranda. “I want to see if I can take my style to new places. I really just want to get better
at producing and see if I can do as much as I can on my own. Because I feel like I understand
the fundamentals. I just need some push. I need to get a better computer and better
equipment.”
