Meet Dylan Findley

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dylan Findley a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dylan, thank you so much for joining us and offering your lessons and wisdom for our readers. One of the things we most admire about you is your generosity and so we’d love if you could talk to us about where you think your generosity comes from.

I noticed early on that good things happen much more often when people are cooperative and selfless than when they are competitive and selfish. While online media and unending advertisements tell us to stand out and get ahead, my own experience has taught me that success more often comes from building friendships one by one. I am grateful for the music festivals and conferences where I can get away from the hundreds of people and share a meaningful experience with a handful of new friends. At a conference in Miami, I decided to use a rental car and found many opportunities to give people rides. For example, a group of us went to the beach in the evening after a concert, and I brought another small group to my favorite Nicaraguan restaurant there. Being able to serve people made for moments that will last in my memory much longer than the conference proceedings, as wonderful as they were.

I don’t believe that generosity is to do good things for the intent to get something out of it. We are all seeking after genuine connection, and doing good with expectations of the recipient creates a sterile relationship. I suppose my generosity comes from the Christian principle to simply care about people, regardless of circumstance. Jesus healed people without desire from them, and he gave each person individualized attention. It isn’t easy. There are countless distractions, and I’ve had my share of regrets where I didn’t give my best attention or time to someone. I’m sure I’ve unintentionally offended people because I was too distracted with a busy schedule. However, I trace some of my greatest professional and personal successes to simply doing good. Some of these acts are best kept silent, yet so many of my artistic projects, including those that furthered my career, were founded on a good cause or represented the continuation of a good interaction.

So, in essence, my generosity comes from the desire to build friendships with no strings attached. And having a good group of friends has naturally allowed me to be part of a community I cherish. When one has a good community, people care about and help each other, and opportunities naturally arise.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I am a music composer who is passionate about creating special listener experiences. While I have written music for large groups like an orchestra, much of my music is written for small groups. I love the process of bringing out (and sometimes testing) the strengths of the individuals I write for, and I believe that music written for soloists or small groups has a sort of intimacy hard to achieve otherwise. Also essential to this special listener experience is technology. My music uses electronic sounds, often created from the live performer, and it often includes video elements.

I’d also love to highlight the causes behind some of my music. Not every piece of mine is intended to speak on a societial topic; however, music seems to have a special communicative power. In partnership with international refugee advocacy organization Their Story is Our Story, the concert-length music-centered documentary “The Story of Our Journey” that allows for displaced individuals from Nigeria, Afghanistan, and Honduras to share their story through interview footage. My work i2i explores the dangers of machine learning and social media on mental health and human interactions. Lo! laments the onslaught of media voices and promotes finding peace in God and getting away from the cell phone. And an upcoming project deals with the lasting effects of trauma and ways to find healing. I am always interested in hearing interesting ideas for a collaborative project or having my music presented in places where it can make an impact!

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I would say that kindness, a learning mindset, and optimism most impacted my journey. We begin a professional path knowing so little about our craft. Some people have confidence regardless of knowledge, and others are terribly aware of their shortcomings.

The exciting aspect of beginning a journey is how much time there is to learn without the strain of weighty responsibilities. For folks early in their journey, enjoy every moment of training, education, and professional opportunities. You might think that you have very little time before your career is thrust upon you. This might be true; however, you can choose to be optimistic about your future. To develop such optimism, seek after the path that resonates with your abilities and talents. Trust in what is true; you have a set of skills unique to you. Those skills might not be fully developed, and you have the chance to develop them. I promise you’ll look back and see how your fledging skills transformed step by step over time to be what you envisioned. It takes considerable effort and lots of time, but it is so worth the effort to develop your abilities.

To develop abilities, you’ll need to open yourself to learning. How might one develop a learning mindset? Listen carefully to your mentors and peers, Consider their ideas seriously, even if those ideas seem so foreign to how you think. Share your thoughts with others and have an open mind when others disagree with your viewpoint. In a similar vein, get used to doing things you have never done before. Say yes to projects that will challenge you. In the midst of a challenge you’ll learn more about yourself than in your confident space. Even more importantly, get ready to fail and enjoy the lessons learned in failure. It is embarassing to fail, especially if it lets other people down. Yet, failure reveals essential gaps in knowledge or preparation. It gives direction and focus to a project, so why not build failure into the plan?

In all these efforts, be kind to others and to yourself. You can fail and still be respectable. You can disagree with others in a way that maintains good relationships. While there are many excuses to lose one’s cool, you’ll find that there is no limit to the positive effect that kindness can have on others. If you develop the kindness that puts out fires, mediates conflict, and touches people’s lives, you’ll receive people’s abiding trust, which is their highest honor to offer you.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I mentioned it briefly earlier, but I am always looking for folks to collaborate with! The sort of people I work well with want to push art beyond entertainment. They want to explore topics of impact and dream big. They also come into projects with an open mind, ready to adapt and hear the perspectives of fellow collaborators. In collaborating with those who are not musicians, I am very interested in interdisciplinary intersections. Where do music and sculpture converge? How does music relate to theater? Can music be written to dance, or must dance always be choreographed to music? If you’d like to work with me, you’re welcome to email me or use the contact form on my website.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.dylanfindley.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dylanfindleycomposer
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@dylanfindleymusic
• Soundcloud: https://www.soundcloud.com/dylan-findley

Image Credits

Center for Latter-day Saint Arts