When singer Sheri Miller was studying at the University of Pennsylvania and singing in blues bands throughout Philadelphia, she had a dream she stumbled upon a magical Casio keyboard that enabled her to write the perfect pop song.
When she awoke, Miller decided to go the school’s library and took the scenic route through campus instead of the shorter path a few blocks from her apartment.
Along the way, Miller wandered into a garage sale, where she found an item she had wanted to buy – the very same keyboard she dreamed about the night before.
“I asked if I could try out the keyboard and they hooked it up to an old Nintendo charger, and I asked them to please hold it for me while I ran to the ATM to get the $20 they were asking for,” Miller said. “From that moment, I never looked back. I started writing songs in a very focused way from that point forward.”
But Miller, a Flower Hill native who attended Roslyn High School, has been around music her entire life. The daughter of an opera singer and niece of a producer and studio musician, she has notebooks filled with songs she has written dating back to when she was 8 years old.
“I had a calling to compose songs at a very young age,” Miller said. “I was always artistic and creative, always drawing or involved in the arts in some way.”
Now based in New York City, Miller has been named to Music Connection magazine’s list of the top 100 unsigned artists and self-released two EPs, 2008’s “Mantra” and 2011’s “Winning Hand.”
Miller said she will soon return to the studio to start pre-production on another EP and is considering releasing demo recordings across her social media feeds.
Though still unsigned as a solo artist, Miller last month released a video for her single “Mantra (I’m in Love),” and has recorded with members of the CBS Orchestra that accompanies “The Late Show With David Letterman.” Miller said she is also in the process of recording three original holiday songs she hopes to release in the next year.
Miller said she never gave becoming a professional musician much thought, but added she never considered doing anything else with her life other than write songs and perform.
“It wasn’t really a black-and-white kind of thing, but in a way I had been preparing for that moment all my life,” Miller said. “It was a very easy choice to make, and I think I went exactly where I needed to be. Everything fell into place in the right way for me.”
Miller was exposed to a variety of music growing up, saying she was influenced as much by the Beatles as she was by a bevy of Motown, blues and jazz singers. The first concert she said she remembers attending was Billy Joel’s tour in support of his 1989 album “Storm Front,” and said her next two shows were Paul Simon and Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers.
Even now, Miller said she takes inspiration from many different forms of music, listening to a song for its aesthetic qualities as well as its composition in improving her own work.
To write a song, Miller said she uses meditation to clear her mind, and out of these moments of peace come fragments of lyrics, melodies or chord progressions.
“It’s different every time,” Miller said. “It all depends on what’s floating around and you respond to that and you go with that.”
Miller added that her writing process for a song doesn’t end, as she’s taken to rewriting and rearranging songs even after they’ve been released.
“It depends on where I am in my musical process and what I’m doing,” Miller said. “I sometimes will listen and connect with a song emotionally, and sometimes I will listen as a musician and hear how the instruments mix and balance.”
Miller will perform Sunday at Copaigue Library and return to Roslyn on Nov. 10 for a concert at Bryant Library.
