Musically Speaking

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:https://youtu.be/0kunGUM83m8

Here’s Rosewood Casket:https://youtu.be/dkJqhunzetk

And here’s my Geneva Academy Singers singing her Light of a Clear Blue Morning:https://youtu.be/KVJre77Dtng

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jarrodrichey.substack.com

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: https://youtu.be/C1mMsz2I1c8

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jarrodrichey.substack.com

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: https://youtu.be/g23umCq9z2A

And here’s Jeremy Begbie’s discussion if you’re interested: https://youtu.be/UlR3bOsoAdA

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jarrodrichey.substack.com

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”: https://youtu.be/GkCEvpcqjmk

And here’s Muriel Anderson’s “To B or Not to B”: https://youtu.be/LzTJqR9_g0I

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jarrodrichey.substack.com

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: https://youtu.be/suYkNvRxkH8

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jarrodrichey.substack.com

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.

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 Genevieve Waltz at the BBC Proms: https://youtu.be/FgK06VeadWE

Here is Achille playing the Bach A Minor Violin Concerto first movement. It is quite enjoyable: https://youtu.be/FFKVPkooCHg

Here is Achille playing Michael Spivakovsky’s Harmonica Concerto in Vienna: https://youtu.be/pNaxXuGCNY4

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jarrodrichey.substack.com

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.

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 Songs for Friday Afternoons if you want to listen more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2bDWRE_3tI&list=PLrSjBXO8lUo2ZHPej1dk3cqMV8fkeiv86

Here’s the spring concert recording in full: https://www.youtube.com/live/I0KSu5H0kyk

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jarrodrichey.substack.com

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: https://youtu.be/xtcQCTw3tyo

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jarrodrichey.substack.com

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.

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 video on Facebook. You can see Lamar and me on the second row: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1199884020109840

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

https://youtu.be/q1I8BSwmgTA

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jarrodrichey.substack.com

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.

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 clip from two years ago in the atrium of this same hotel. We sang some psalms and hymns together: https://youtu.be/qw4tyqvzrdw

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit jarrodrichey.substack.com