Music for Earbuds
Dylan Findley
Commissioned by the Center for Latter-day Saint Arts, Art for Uncertain Times.
Listen here (or by clicking any image below).
Dylan Findley’s brainstorming notes for his composition, Music for Earbuds.
The listeners space [will] become the music…
A note of instruction: Music For Earbuds is an ambient experience that should eventually blend with the listener's surroundings, whether those may be urban or rural. To find the right volume, the listener should balance the loudness at about 30 seconds into the piece (the music fades in) to sound prominent yet not overbearing. As the piece progresses, the music will gradually get softer to allow the listener's space to become the music.
About the composition: The solitude during the COVID-19 quarantine draws me to the incidental sounds of everyday life, both those of nature and those we have imposed upon our sonic environment. In the spirit of John Cage or Brian Eno, Music for Earbuds accompanies rather than distracts from the soft sonic stirrings around the listener during daily tasks. Electronic music from earbuds frames ambient sounds through contrasts of soft melodic gestures, processed intimate natural and mechanical sound samples, and complete silence. By gently drawing attention to soft, processed and synthesized sounds, intermittent silences invite the listener to experience the ambient music already in motion. —Dylan Findley, 2020.
Dylan Findley
writes music in search of intangible truths. Dylan’s electroacoustic and acoustic music has received commissions from the Barlow Endowment, São Paulo Contemporary Composers Festival Orchestral Commissioning Project, and the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture in partnership with refugee advocacy organization Their Story Is Our Story. The latter commission, The Story of Our Journey, is a 51-minute work for clarinet, electronics, and video that traces the stories of six refugee families or individuals to be premiered after the COVID-19 pandemic. His works have been featured on three continents and across the U.S. by groups including newEar, Transient Canvas, members of the Cleveland Orchestra, Ensemble Mise-En, Quarteto L’Arianna, Mnemosyne Quartet, Great Noise Ensemble, PULSE Trio, Frost Symphony Orchestra, and BYU’s Wind Symphony.
You can hear more of Findley’s music here.