Secret Lives: In Perfect Harmony

At OhioHealth Marion Medical Campus, Robin Dye, RN, supports patients through pain management, and her nephew, Dylan Black, oversees imaging operations. Outside of work, the two share a creative outlet that brings them even closer: writing and creating music.

“I always sang,” Dye said. “I can remember the moment I realized I could sing harmony, but I didn’t know what it was.” Music has been a constant presence in their family. “A lot of times when she was playing guitar, I just kind of sat back and watched,” Black said.

While Black admitted he doesn’t sing or play an instrument, he’s long been drawn to poetry. When a cousin encouraged him to run one of his poems through an AI music generator, a new hobby was born. “Basically, you have a whole band at your access,” he said. “I select what genre of music I want, if I want rap music, country music. And then I can give it some instructions like ‘raspy voice’ or ‘catchy melody.’”

Both Black and Dye said their process almost always starts with the lyrics. “Whenever I’m inspired, I just put it in my notes,” Dye said. “Sometimes I’ll go back and look at things I’ve written before and think, ‘okay, that belongs here.’”

While Dye enjoys singing live—“You can make mistakes and nobody notices”—recording is a different kind of creative challenge. “It has to be perfect,” she said, “or at least perfectly imperfect.”

For Black, who spends his workday focused on operations and logistics, songwriting provides balance. “A lot of what I do is very left-brain,” he says. “Writing gives me a place to just be me.”

And his inspiration often comes from those around him, especially his kids. He’s written a song for his seventh-grade daughter’s basketball team and another for his son, who plays varsity. “My wife asked him, ‘Do you want your dad to write you a song?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, alright.’ That made my day.”

The pair joked about their creative styles. “I like to make people laugh,” Black said. Dye, with a grin, replied, “I make people cry.”

But they agree on what matters most: “The message is the most important thing,” Dye said. “It’s therapy, if nothing else.”

Secret Lives is an ongoing series that shares the unusual past careers and unique hobbies of OhioHealth associates, physicians and volunteers.