Latest “Field Notes”
FIELD NOTES
July 7, 2026
Granite Falls, Washington
People ask me all the time, both clumsy and poetic, what horses have to do with music.
I understand what they're asking.
The volume of a music career. The extroversion of artist development. Songwriting itself. It all seems almost antithetical to the silence of open fields, the birdsong of the barn, the solitude of the ranch.
But horses, I truly believe, are the most musical of creatures.
They're all rhythm, instinct, emotion. Tapped into a collective sense of being, communicating through intentional arpeggios of movement and touch.
Horses and songs.
One teaches me how to pay attention without forcing anything.
The other asks me to.
You can't bully a frightened horse into trusting you any more than you can bully a song into existing. The harder you chase either one, the more likely it is to keep running.
Progress with both almost always looks quieter than people imagine.
And that's the hardest part of writing with other artists. Of trying to teach this to someone else.
I don't know that it can be taught.
Only demonstrated.
I can put an artist beside a horse and tell them, "Get quiet."
Progress, with either, is made of showing up.
Watching.
Waiting.
Listening.
Learning when to move, and when to leave well enough alone.
That's why these worlds have never felt separate to me.
It's also why words tend to fail when I try to answer the well-meaning people who ask what horses have to do with music.
To me, they're both studies in listening.
Studies in alignment.
— Alynn
If this found you at the right time...
Join me for the next Field Note.