More musicians are getting their big break online these days, and folk artist Kina Grannis is continuing the trend. She has evolved from creating popular videos on YouTube to releasing a full-length album.

Extending her fall tour to add Midwest stops, singer-songwriter Kina Grannis will visit Omaha for the first time to perform at The Waiting Room on Tuesday.

“I’ve been trying to get out [to the Midwest] for so long,” Grannis said.

It has been taking her some time she said because there are fewer people that are going to come out to a show in Omaha than Los Angeles and New York, but she has wanted to come for a while.

“I haven’t seen a lot of the Midwest and I just want to meet all the people out there, so I just decided, ‘OK time to make it happen,'” Grannis said.

Music was always in the picture for the Orange County, Calif. native, who started singing when she was little and mostly wrote songs about her stuffed animals. In elementary school she started messing around on the piano, and then she studyed classical violin for eight years.

It was not until halfway through high school that Kina picked up a guitar and realized how badly she needed to sing.

“That’s when I really started writing,” Grannis said.

Grannis has unlimited inspirations for her music, using “pretty much everyone and everything,” she said.

As a songwriter, Grannis tries not to write a song; instead, she lets it come naturally.

“I write songs and they come to me and I’m not expecting it, and they usually come out within an hour or two,” she said.

“So it’s an interesting process where I’m not thinking too much about it, just trying to let it happen. But when I sit down and try to write a song, nothing happens and it’s very frustrating.”

Grannis created an account on YouTube in 2007, when she uploaded a music video that she entered into the Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl Contest.” She ended up winning. She had her video aired during the Superbowl with an audience of 97 million viewers and walked away with a record deal.

Grannis later decided to give up the record deal and become an independent artist. She released her debut full-length album, “Stairwells,” in February.

The title of the album is very significant to Grannis, who, while in college at the University of Southern California, found herself retreating to the stairwells of the dorms and the apartments where she was living to write.

“I feel like in a way it’s kind of where I grew into an artist,” she said. “So when I made this album, I kind of wanted to do a tribute to the stairwells.”

Grannis said she wants her shows to be relaxed and a chance to hang out.

“That’s what I’ve been trying to do as I’ve been touring, is try to make it comfortable and relaxed and kind of have an exchange between the audience and myself and just have fun with it.”