Musically Speaking

Friday FIVE: September 4 - Morning Mood

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:03:24 GMT

On September 4, 1907, Edvard Grieg died in Bergen, Norway, the same city where he was born. 119 years later, his music is still among the most recognized in the classical repertoire. In this episode, I reflect on two pieces from his Peer Gynt suite that could not be more different. In the Hall of the Mountain King, which Grieg himself reportedly thought was too crude, and Morning Mood, which reveals the quieter and more luminous side of a composer who spent his whole career writing music that sounded like Norway. Same composer. Same suite. Remarkable range.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s a link to a recording of In the Hall of the Mountain King:

Here is a recording of Grieg’s Morning Mood:

Friday FIVE: August 28 - Farther Along

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 28 Aug 2026 10:03:45 GMT

Dolly Parton passed away this week at the age of 80. In this episode I add to the conversation about her music, hopefully by taking you on some of the backwoods roads rather than the main road of her best known hits. Everybody is doing those right now. Instead I want to point you to the 1987 Trio album with Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt, three of the great voices of that era stripped down to close harmony, acoustic instruments, and no production tricks whatsoever. Along the way I reflect on the Elvis publishing story, share a recording of my Geneva Academy singers performing Craig Hella Johnson's choral arrangement of Light of a Clear Blue Morning, and close with one more from the Trio album. Farther along, she would say. That is a good way to leave.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s a link to a recording of Farther Along:

Here’s Rosewood Casket:

And here’s my Geneva Academy Singers singing her Light of a Clear Blue Morning:

Friday FIVE: August 21 - Portrait in Jazz

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 10:02:15 GMT

Everyone knows Kind of Blue. But the pianist at that session, Bill Evans, was quietly developing something extraordinary of his own. In this episode I put the spotlight on Portrait in Jazz, recorded in a single day in December 1959 with bassist Scott LaFaro and drummer Paul Motian. Evans called their approach simultaneous improvisation, three equal voices in conversation rather than a piano supported by a rhythm section. The result is one of the finest jazz trio albums ever made. Start with Autumn Leaves. Let the trio do the rest.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s a link to a recording of Autumn Leaves:

Friday FIVE: August 14 - Upside Down

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 14 Aug 2026 10:03:17 GMT

What do Paganini’s dazzling Caprice No. 24 and one of the most beloved melodies ever written have in common? More than you might think. In this episode, I discuss the interesting path from Paganini’s famous violin caprice to Sergei Rachmaninoff’s unforgettable Eighteenth Variation from Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Along the way, I explore musical inversion, Jeremy Begbie’s insight into the piece, and why one of history’s most beautiful melodies was hiding inside another all along.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s a link to a recording with the sheet music overlaid:

And here’s Jeremy Begbie’s discussion if you’re interested:

Friday FIVE: August 7 - Little Martha

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 10:03:08 GMT

In the late nineties I came across a compilation called Guitar Fingerstyle: A Narada Collection, and it has never really left my rotation. In this episode I reflect on the opening track, Little Martha, played by Tim Farrell in a solo fingerstyle arrangement of a piece originally written by Duane Allman shortly before his death in 1971. There is a story behind this melody, and it makes the listening even better. Along the way I consider what fingerstyle guitar shares with the harp, what King David knew about music and a troubled king, and recommend Muriel Anderson's To B or Not to B as a bonus listen.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s a link to Tim Farrell’s cover of “Little Martha”:

And here’s Muriel Anderson’s “To B or Not to B”:

Friday FIVE: July 31 - Two Lines in Conversation

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 10:01:28 GMT

Bach wrote his Two-Part Inventions in 1722 and 1723 as teaching pieces for his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann, who was twelve years old at the time. Fifteen short pieces, each built from a single musical idea developed through imitation, inversion, and sequence. In an age where most music is built on block chords with one thing happening at a time, the polyphony of a Bach Invention can feel like discovering a new language. In this episode, I reflect on what makes these pieces so remarkable, feature Invention No. 1 in C Major and my personal favorite, No. 7 in E Minor, and make the case for why they reward a lifetime of listening.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here is Invention No. 7 if you want to listen further:

Friday FIVE: July 24 - More Than a Blues Harp

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 10:01:44 GMT

Most people associate the harmonica with blues, folk, and country music. But in the hands of British virtuoso Philip Achille, the chromatic harmonica becomes something altogether different. In this episode, I reflect on Achille's remarkable performances, from the BBC Proms to the London Underground, and explore how one musician can completely reshape our expectations of an instrument. Sometimes all it takes is a fresh set of ears to discover a voice that was there all along.

Here is Achille playing the Bach A Minor Violin Concerto first movement. It is quite enjoyable:

Here is Achille playing Michael Spivakovsky’s Harmonica Concerto in Vienna:

Friday FIVE: July 17 - The Children's Voice

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 10:01:00 GMT

The tuneful singing voice of a child is one of the most beautiful and surprising sounds in all of choral music. But you would not always know it from what you hear in many modern settings. In this episode I reflect on what it takes to help young singers find their head voice, why so much popular music works against that goal, and what is at stake for young men especially before their voices change. Featuring my Delta Youth Chorale singing Benjamin Britten’s Songs for Friday Afternoons from our spring concert, including “Jazz-Man” and “There Was a Man of Newington,” this episode makes a case for giving children the right training and the right repertoire.

Here’s the spring concert recording in full:

Friday FIVE: July 10 - Triple Fiddle & Three-Part Harmony

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 10:02:05 GMT

It is summer, and hopefully your pace is a little more leisurely. This week I recommend a group I have been enjoying and thought you should know about if you do not already. The Quebe Sisters are three sisters from North Texas who play triple fiddle and sing tight three-part harmony in a style they call Progressive Western Swing. If you know the Good Lovelies, this group will feel like familiar territory. In this episode I highlight three songs worth your time, Every Which-A-Way, Always Seem to Get Things Wrong, and It's a Sin to Tell a Lie. Four albums in the catalog. All of them worth your time this summer.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s a link to the YouTube Recording of Every which-a-way:

Friday FIVE: July 3 - Solfege on Parade

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 10:03:05 GMT

In March of 2017, I sat on the second row of the closing concert of the OAKE National Conference in Philadelphia with my friend and mentor Lamar Robertson. The American Boychoir, under director Fernando Malvar-Ruiz, closed the program with Stars and Stripes Forever, sung entirely on solfege, piccolo line and all. In this episode I reflect on what that moment revealed about music literacy, the Kodály approach, and what it looks like when solfege stops being an exercise and becomes a language. I will put a link to the OAKE Facebook video in the show notes. You can spot my red hair and Lamar's gray hair on the second row.

Here’s the professional, non-solfege recording on YouTube:

Friday FIVE: June 26 - Real Harmony

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 10:01:19 GMT

This week's episode comes from Atlanta, Georgia, where I am attending the Repairing the Ruins conference, the annual gathering of the Association of Classical Christian Schools. After nine years of leading morning singing in the Grand Ballroom for over a thousand classical Christian educators, I reflect on the workshop I gave yesterday — Real Harmony: Recovering Communal Singing in a Disembodied Age. Music surrounds us like never before. And yet the formative power of singing together is quietly disappearing from our schools, churches, and homes. The work of recovering it is not as elusive as it seems.

Friday FIVE: June 19 - Bethena, A Concert Waltz

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 19 Jun 2026 10:01:46 GMT

Scott Joplin gave America the Maple Leaf Rag and the Entertainer. But in 1905, grieving the death of his wife of ten weeks, he wrote something entirely different. Bethena is a concert waltz, marked cantabile, wistful and searching in ways ragtime was never supposed to be. In this episode, I reflect on the backstory behind this neglected composition, a quiet parallel to Bach's Partita No. 2 in D Minor, and what Bethena reveals about who Joplin really was beyond the title of King of Ragtime.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s a recording of Bethena:

Friday FIVE: June 12 - Straighten Up & Fly Right

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 12 Jun 2026 10:02:23 GMT

Nat King Cole’s first major commercial hit came from an unlikely source, his father’s pulpit. In this episode, I reflect on the story behind Straighten Up and Fly Right, the folk fable at its heart, and what made the King Cole Trio so distinctive. Along the way, I share a few of my favorite Cole recordings, including his shuffle cover of On the Street Where You Live. Sometimes the best advice and the best music come from the same place.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s a recording of “Straighten Up and Fly Right”:

And one of my all-time favorites, his cover of “On the Street Where You Live":

Friday FIVE: June 5 - Another Lens on Beethoven

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 10:01:49 GMT

A few years ago, a friend told me I needed to hear Trio X of Sweden. He was right. In this episode, I reflect on this Swedish improvisational trio and their remarkable reinterpretations of Beethoven, Schumann, sacred music, and more. When they take on the Moonlight Sonata, it is not novelty or irony. It feels like another lens through which to hear a familiar work. Sometimes great art holds up precisely because it can be seen differently and still endure.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s a link to Trio X’s Cover of Moonlight Sonata:

Friday FIVE: May 29 - Someone Had to Write It

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 29 May 2026 10:02:55 GMT

As America approaches its semiquincentennial on July 4, 2026, composer and pianist Stephen Limbaugh decided the occasion deserved more than a theme song. In this episode, I reflect on his America 250 Symphony, a full four-movement, 28-minute orchestral work documented in real time over two years on X. Working in the lineage of Dvořák, Copland, and Gershwin, and collaborating with Hollywood orchestrator Conrad Pope, Limbaugh is attempting something serious. Whether or not it becomes a landmark work, the instinct behind it is worth paying attention to.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s the link to support the work: https://www.givesendgo.com/A250symphony

Friday FIVE: May 22 - The Oratorio Before Elijah

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 22 May 2026 10:03:27 GMT

On May 22, 1836, Felix Mendelssohn premiered his oratorio St. Paul in Düsseldorf to immediate acclaim. One hundred and ninety years later, one chorus from it still stops people in their tracks. In this episode, I reflect on what made St. Paul significant in his time, what How Lovely Are the Messengers does with a text from Romans 10, and why a group of fourth through tenth grade boys in West Monroe, Louisiana, sang it better than they may have known.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s the recording of “How Lovely are the Messengers”:

Friday FIVE Revisited: March 28 - A Place in the Choir

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 15 May 2026 10:01:34 GMT

This week’s episode revisits a previous episode and briefly discusses the role of the choir when it comes to congregational singing in worship.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features five minutes of music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Friday FIVE: May 8 - The Hymnal as Teacher

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 08 May 2026 10:03:16 GMT

For generations, church hymnals did more than preserve songs. They quietly taught ordinary people how to read music. A passing remark from country singer Ella Langley sparked this one, and this episode explores how the act of singing from the page, week after week, formed musical instincts most people never knew they had. I reflect on the shift from hymnals to lyric screens and ask what role the church should play in forming musically literate worshipers today.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Friday FIVE: May 1 - Two Minds, One Harmony

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 01 May 2026 10:01:27 GMT

On May 1, 1786, Mozart conducted the world premiere of The Marriage of Figaro in Vienna. 240 years later, it remains one of the most performed operas on earth. In this episode, I reflect on what made Mozart’s approach to opera revolutionary: music so precisely tailored to each character that you cannot swap their melodies. And in the opera’s very first scene, before the plot has barely begun, Mozart does something even more remarkable. He lets two characters sing in harmony to tell you something the text never says.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.

Here’s John Mason Hodges’ talk at New Saint Andrews College on this exact subject:

Friday FIVE: April 24 - Breath and Pipes

Jarrod Richey — Fri, 24 Apr 2026 10:03:19 GMT

In this episode, I reflect on why the pipe organ shaped Christian worship for centuries and what it still teaches us today. From Mozart’s description of it as “the king of the instruments” to its role in strengthening congregational singing, the organ models corporate worship: many voices unified under one guiding hand. More than nostalgia, it is theological architecture, breath turned into sound, reminding us that worship is proclamation, not private meditation.

The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features music commentary, examples, and recommendations from Jarrod Richey.