Em Harriss is an Oregon-based musician who describes herself as "super socially awkward and shy" about her music, despite a growing fan base on Vine of over 230,000 followers and recent EP that hit the top 10 on iTunes.
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"Music has always been apart of my private life," Harriss told BuzzFeed News. "Everyone in my family sings or plays an instrument so that creativity and vibes were always present. I would only really play and sing with my family (I didn't actually like my voice at all) never in public and never even with friends."
Harriss, whose voice sounds like a fusion of Fiona Apple and Regina Spektor, started using Vine about 10 months ago where she says "things just took off unexpectedly."
"It was a great outlet for me to share my original songs (which got more attention than my covers.)"
Harriss's writing-style is a bit unusual: instead of writing full-length songs, she records six-second snippets of ideas to Vine just two minutes after composing them.
"It is in that moment when my head is the most clear because I'm not worried about writing a whole song to post online, I can focus on only six seconds worth of writing and music," Harris said. "Then those 6 second snippets turn into full blown songs. It's somewhat easy as a songwriter on Vine because 6 seconds is all you need to get something stuck in your head."
Harriss formed a private songbook based on these Vines and, with the help of a very successful crowdfunding campaign, released Year 2277, her first EP on iTunes.
Inspired partially by the video game Fallout, the post-apocalyptic-themed EP "goes much deeper than just four songs, so there are plans for an album."