SPOTLIGHT: Miko Marks on Learning to Sing Before Finding Her Voice [ESSAY]

Editor's Note: Miko Marks' new LP titled Hell or High Water comes out today, October 30, via Redtone Records. No Depression's Spotlight Artist for October 2026 penned this original essay about authenticity and her journey toward finding it. Learn more about Marks in this profile and watch an original video she filmed for the Spotlight here.

If someone had told my younger self that I would one day be divorced, sober, creating music with passion, and singing in my most authentic voice, I would not have believed them.

As a child, I was obsessed with singing songs exactly as I heard them recorded. I didn’t take liberties or try to make them my own. I simply repeated what I heard. Looking back, I realize I was learning to sing before I was learning to find my own voice.

My grandmother recognized that I could carry a tune by the age of three. Before long, I was singing at family gatherings, church services, and other events. I was uncomfortable with the attention, but I did it because the adults asked me to. In those days, I did what I was told. That pattern followed me for many years.

In middle school, I chose choir as an elective. It gave me a place to blend in and feel part of something bigger than myself. It was a safe place to make mistakes, learn, and grow. My choir director, Mr. Peitrich, took a special interest in me and taught me how to breathe, use my diaphragm, and understand the mechanics of singing. I learned the tools, but I still hadn’t learned how to fully trust my own voice.

Through theater, madrigals, and small groups in high school and college, I slowly became more connected to singing. It wasn’t until after college, when I married and moved to San Francisco with my then-husband, David, that I began to imagine music as a career. David encouraged me to quit my job and start writing my own songs.

Around 2003, I wrote my first song, “Find My Way Home.” The song reflected something I had already been searching for in my own life — not knowing what was ahead, but trusting that somehow I would find my way.