Brooklyn Marie has been performing on stages since she was 3 years old. Now, at 14, she’s competing on "The Voice" and charting her course as an up-and-coming singer.

Neon blue lights circled a girl with blonde hair and glasses as she stood on the dark stage of “The Voice,” holding her guitar. An ethereal chorus filled the room, and she began to sing Olivia Rodrigo’s “traitor.”

All four coaches, with their backs turned, listened intently. On “The Voice,” the coaches judge the singer on just their voice, not their appearance.

If they’re impressed, they press a button to claim the artist for their team. Their chair turns around so they can meet the performer they chose.

In mere seconds, Queen Latifah pressed the button on her chair and turned around. Not long after, Kelly Clarkson followed suit. Once the performance ended, Clarkson, shocked, exclaimed, “What!?”

Before them stood Brooklyn Marie, a Minnesotan who, at just 14, earned two coaches’ votes to compete on the show.

The choice was now Marie’s. Would she join Team Kelly or Team Queen? Marie had an answer from the start.

“It’s always been Kelly,” Marie announced. Clarkson rejoiced and joined Marie on stage for a hug.

“Brooklyn has this really special tone, and it’s got a purity to it that we haven’t heard, and man, her voice is incredible for just a singer, let alone a 14-year-old,” Clarkson said in a testimonial on the show.

A songbook of life

Marie’s journey on “The Voice” has just begun, but she told MPR News her story with music began long ago.

Marie, whose full name is Brooklyn Marie Ostlund, says before she could walk or even talk, she sang. From the backseat of her family car, melodies flowed out of her as a toddler.

At age 3, she took the stage for the first time at a local telethon in her hometown of Alexandria. Her musical curiosity snowballed; she learned to play different instruments and performed at places around her region.

It wasn’t until one fateful night, watching her favorite musician, Josie Nelson, perform at a local winery, that she realized music could be more than just a passion.

“One day I just thought, what if I could do that?” said Marie. “Like, I love singing so much. I sing in the shower. I sing when I'm sleeping. I sing 24/7. I wondered if I could do that.”

Marie approached Nelson and asked for advice on entering the music industry. Nelson said Marie would have to be quite prepared for the job.

She’d need equipment, endurance to play for multiple hours with no breaks, improvisation skills and enough songs in her repertoire to keep the show from being repetitive.

Marie said she spent her entire summer practicing her guitar to prove she could pull it off. She was 11 and built up a list of a hundred songs that she could perform.

“My fingers started bleeding from playing guitar so much; I just loved it so much,” said Marie. “My dad finally was like, 'Are you actually serious about this?’ And I was like, ‘Yes! Like, I've been working all summer. I need this.’"

Her first gig was playing at her elementary school’s picnic. From there, she scored gigs at wineries, vineyards and breweries.

“It’s really cool to see the progress that I've made from being this little kid who sang outside every night in the summer to being able to perform for people regularly,” said Marie.

A small-town girl dreams of Manhattan’s lights

Marie has released two singles so far: “Tired” and “i miss u.” Both feature her guitar heavily. She altered her vocals to add spatial depth. The songs deal with loss.

She said she often draws inspiration from her emotions and writes things down whenever something bad happens. She looks up to Taylor Swift, whose lyrics resonate with her as emotionally weighty.

Marie said that Swift’s song “Clara Bow” has special meaning to her. The song references the extra obstacles girls and women in the entertainment industry face. It also mentions a small-town girl who dreams of seeing Manhattan's lights. Marie sees herself in the song.

“I'm from a small town. Like, it's not even in anyone's possibility for me to go to ‘The Voice,’” Marie said.

Throughout all this time performing, she dreamed of competing on “The Voice.” Her father suggested she apply after seeing how far she’d already gotten in her music career.

They submitted an audition tape, then NBC asked for another one until she eventually landed a blind audition.

Now, she moves on to “The Battles” component of the show. Here, two contestants of the same team are paired to perform the same song together. The coach must choose the artist they're most confident in. That contestant will move on to the next round.

Marie’s battle round airs Monday, and if she wins, she will advance to an audience vote round on Monday, Nov. 2. There, viewers will decide whether she can advance to the live show stage of the competition.

She’s also working on an album she hopes to release next year.

Music is Marie’s passion, but if it doesn’t work out, she has a plan B: becoming an ear, nose and throat doctor. When she was a kid, she had tubes placed in her ears to help reduce infections.

Then, those tubes exploded her eardrums.

“They were like, ‘We don't know if she's going to be able to hear normally ever again,’” said Marie.

Before each operation she had to go through, a doctor would sing to her to calm her down. She remembers it vividly. It’s why, if all else fails, she hopes to become a doctor and keep a guitar with her to sing to patients who are scared like she once was.

“I really wanted to be able to have the same impact,” she said. “Not only for the parents but also for the children who are going through that.”

This story originally appeared on MPR News.