Musically Speaking

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 c...

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, Moza...

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,...

Colm Wilkinson’s Jean Valjean remains one of the defining performances of Les Misérables . In this episode, we listen to three moments from the 10th Anniversary Concert to hear how the grain and color of his voice reveal moral tension, resolve, and prayer. It’s a masterful example of vocal command and authentic storytelling in song. The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Music...

Easter is not just a day. It is a season. In this episode, I reflect on This Joyful Eastertide , a resurrection hymn set to a 1624 Dutch tune. With its bold proclamation of bodily hope and a refrain that climbs higher with each “arisen,” the music does more than accompany the text — it enacts it. Fifty days to rehearse what we confess. Christ is risen. The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podca...

On Good Friday, hope can seem out of place. Yet after hearing Bach’s St. Matthew Passion in Tokyo, Japan, audiences often ask conductor Masaaki Suzuki to explain what “hope” means in the Christian sense. In this episode, I reflect on how Bach’s music carries the logic of death and resurrection across cultures, and why even in the shadow of the cross, Christian hope is never absent. The Friday FIVE...

We tend to think of hymnals as collections of church songs. But they once taught people how to sing. In 1761, John Wesley included seven “Directions for Singing” in his Methodist hymnal. They are not suggestions. They are instructions. Sing all. Sing in time. Sing modestly. Sing lustily and with a good courage. Above all, sing spiritually. In this episode, I read Wesley’s directions in full and re...

Two singers can sing the same note, yet we instantly know who it is. Why? Because before we hear melody, we hear tone. In this week’s Friday Five, we explore the colors of the human voice — bright and dark, nasal and warm, gritty and clear. Through a few rapid contrasts, we consider how tone color shapes interpretation and even carries biography. This week, listen differently. Don’t just hear the...

On this “on location” episode from a cabin in Branson, Missouri, I reflect on one of the most unusual and powerful choral works of the twentieth century: “Rejoice in the Lamb” by Benjamin Britten. Drawing from the eccentric and deeply devotional poem Jubilate Agno by Christopher Smart, written in part while Smart was confined in an asylum, Britten’s choral work bursts with rhythmic energy, playful...

No dialogue. Just four minutes of music — and an entire marriage. In this episode, I reflect on Michael Giacchino’s “Married Life” from Up and how music functions as narrator. Through melody, orchestration, and tempo, the score carries decades of joy and sorrow without a single word. Music does not decorate the story. It interprets it. The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Mu...

No dialogue. Just four minutes of music — and an entire marriage. In this episode, I reflect on Michael Giacchino’s “Married Life” from Up and how music functions as narrator. Through melody, orchestration, and tempo, the score carries decades of joy and sorrow without a single word. Music does not decorate the story. It interprets it. The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Mu...

In this episode I ask a simple question: when you sing in worship, who are you singing to? Drawing on Paul Munson’s helpful framework , I reflect on three audiences that show up in Scripture, especially in the Psalms and in Paul’s epistles: sometimes we sing to our own souls, always we sing to God, and often we sing to one another through teaching and encouragement. Remembering the audience of con...

In this bonus longform episode of Musically Speaking , I sit down with Maestro John Mason Hodges, music director of the Monroe Symphony Orchestra and founder of the Center for Western Studies , for a wide-ranging conversation about music, meaning, and maturity. Maestro Hodges also teaches for us at the Redeemer School of the Arts . What happens when we are surrounded by constant sound but slowly l...

In this episode, I introduce listeners to the Welsh bass/baritone Bryn Terfel, a singer whose career has spanned the world’s great opera houses while also reaching audiences through concerts, recordings, and broadcasts far beyond them. I offer three observations about what makes his artistry so compelling: the depth and flexibility of his voice, his gift for communication and character, and his ra...

As the Winter Olympics begin, I reflect on the music of John Williams and how his work has come to define some of our most recognizable public moments. While he is best known for film scores, Williams’s music reaches far beyond the cinema into television, football broadcasts, and Olympic ceremonies. In this episode, I consider how his commitment to the symphony orchestra, his use of fanfare and le...

In this episode, I share a handful of musical recommendations centered around Joshua Lee Turner and Carson McKee, musicians I first discovered during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beginning with their delightful banjo and guitar cover of ABBA’s “Mamma Mia,” I reflect on what drew me to their work and to collaborations with Tony Lindgren and Elle Cordova, including memorable covers of “...

In this episode I reflect on silence, not as the absence of sound, but as an active and necessary partner to music. Drawing on musical examples like rests, cadences, and communal pauses before and after singing, I consider how silence shapes meaning, gives weight to words, and trains our attention. In a culture filled with constant noise and distraction, this episode invites listeners to notice si...

In this week's episode, I reflect on how many of us were quietly introduced to orchestral music through cartoons long before we ever set foot in a concert hall. From Tom and Jerry to Looney Tunes, familiar animated worlds trained our ears to recognize musical gesture, drama, and beauty. This episode explores how public domain classical music became the soundtrack of childhood and why those sounds...

In this episode, I reflect on why lyrics tend to stay with us when they are sung, but often fade when they are merely spoken. From familiar popular songs to Scripture memory projects, I consider how melody binds words to memory and shapes how those words live inside us. With examples from Integrity Music and Dr. David Erb’s Cantica Sanctorum , this episode invites listeners to reflect on what we a...

What happens when truth is communicated without beauty? In this bonus episode of Musically Speaking , I sit down with Dr. Scott Aniol to argue that beauty is not an optional accessory to truth, but the means by which truth is perceived, embodied, and lived. Drawing from theology, philosophy, and the Western artistic tradition, they explore why aesthetics shape belief, why all art is inherently int...

In this episode, recorded in the first days of the new year and still within the twelve days of Christmas, I reflect on the meaning of Auld Lang Syne . Tracing its roots in the poetry of Robert Burns, I consider how this simple and enduring song gives us words for memory, friendship, gratitude, and hope. With reflections on recordings by Harry Connick Jr. and Lou Rawls, I invite listeners to make...

In this episode, I consider the quiet richness of the days that follow Christmas and why the season is worth more than one day. Drawing on Robert Herrick’s Christmas Carol poem, I invite the listener to make room in their mind and heart for the joy that continues beyond December 25. The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute podcast series from Musically Speaking that features music commentary, examp...

Merry Christmas Eve - Bonus Mini-Episode 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 this episode, we reflect on singing as a communal act that forms us in ways private listening cannot. Drawing on recent performances by my Delta Youth Chorale and Geneva Academy students, we consider how making music together binds singers and listeners alike, especially during Advent and Christmas. In an age of earbuds and individualized playlists, this episode invites us to recover the joy, f...

This episode looks at how a paraphrase of Psalm 98, written centuries ago without a single reference to Bethlehem or the Nativity, found its way into the heart of the Christmas season. From Isaac Watts’s text to the lively tune that echoes Handel’s style, we explore the surprising journey that turned a psalm into a hymn/carol many of us now know by heart. The Friday FIVE is a weekly five-minute po...