About

“There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.” – Duke Ellington

“Where words fail, music speaks.” – Hans Christian Anderson

Good Music Speaks is a blog about music, whatever music I happen to be listening to at the time I’m writing. We have more access to music than at any other time in history. People carry thousands of songs around on their phone or iPod. There is also internet radio, satellite radio, FM radio, music in the concert hall, club, bar, elevator, dentist’s office and from the guy in the car next to me damaging his hearing with his radio up way too loud. There is music in the background we are hardly aware of, music in commercials, music we dance to, eat to, sleep to and finally music to which we give our full undivided attention.

It is that last sort of music, the kind we pay full attention to that I want to write about. Genre is not crucial, I don’t care if it’s classical music, opera, jazz, blues or whatever. Just that we are giving our whole consciousness to listening to it, and in return hope that it speaks to us in some meaningful way. I want to take each thing we are listening to on its own terms, not asking the music to be anything it wasn’t trying to be. This sometimes takes some context of the time, place and purpose for which the music was originally meant. In the end it is a sort of three-part conversation between the composer, performer and listener that comes together to define our musical experience.

I have to say thank you to all the friends and family that have encouraged me in this project and helped spread the blog around the internet on their social networks.  Most of all I want to thank my beautiful wife Judy for her love and support.  She has been my test subject, proofreader and cheerleader from the beginning.  This is in addition to being the household CFO, chief of operations, main political-spiritual-menu adviser and the great love of my life.  (Thanks babe, you are the best thing that ever happened to me!)

Hopefully you will find something worth reading here.  Maybe it will lead you to some good music that is worth the time to listen and let it speak to you too.

– Rich Brown