What makes music feel alive? Technical precision and flawless execution are essential, but they do not explain why certain performances linger long after the final note fades.

In this solo episode, James Newcomb reflects on the difference between playing notes and creating meaning, exploring how lived experience, embodiment, discipline, and humility shape real musical expression.

Drawing on decades as a performer and teacher, this episode reframes music not as performance or self-expression, but as alignment—an encounter that draws both musician and listener into something deeper, larger, and true.

Episode Highlights:

• Why technical perfection alone often fails to move the listener
• The difference between playing notes and creating meaning
• How hardship and lived experience deepen musical expression
• Why music cannot live in the intellect alone
• Embodiment, presence, and the intelligence of the body
• Discipline as the path to freedom, not limitation
• Music as alignment rather than self-expression
• Resonance as the true destination of musical practice

Follow James Newcomb on the web at jamesdnewcomb.com.

Watch on YouTube

In this episode, James Newcomb is joined by Brian Neal, longtime trumpeter with the Dallas Brass and Professor of Trumpet at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music.

Together, they explore what lies beyond technical mastery in music—why virtuosity alone is not enough, and how true musical communication depends on vulnerability, context, and shared human experience.

Drawing from performance, pedagogy, and decades on stage, the conversation examines how music conveys meaning words cannot, and why the highest form of musicianship is connection, not display.

Resources mentioned:

Brian Neal's Website: https://briannealtrumpet.com

Dallas Brass: https://www.dallasbrass.com

Brian Neal’s Concertante - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLTQjr4_u7M

jamesdnewcomb.com

Show notes: https://jamesdnewcomb.com/jeannie

We welcome biblical scholar and author Dr. Jeannie Constantinou for a sweeping, heartfelt, and clarifying conversation on phronema—the ancient Christian mindset preserved in the Orthodox Church.

I open the conversation by sharing my own journey of transitioning into Orthodoxy, reflecting on how Western Christianity shaped my early worldview and how the discovery of the Orthodox Church revealed an entirely different way of understanding faith, thought, and spiritual life. As you'll hear, reframing an entire worldview and mindset does not happen overnight!

In this episode, you'll hear why Orthodoxy speaks so deeply to those seeking “something more” i.e. a fuller experience of Christ rather than a purely symbolic one. The discussion highlights the West’s long-standing reliance on human reason, logic, and systematic explanations, contrasted with the Orthodox emphasis on mystery, experience, sacrament, community, and the healing of the heart.

To put it another way: We can't possibly understand God in all His fullness, and we're perfectly okay with that!

Dr. Jeannie explains the ancient Greek concept of phronema. This goes beyond a mere “worldview.,” It is a mindset, disposition, and lived mentality that flows from the apostles and the early Church, unchanged for two millennia.

She also explains in detail how the Orthodox Church has maintained continuity with Christ’s original intent, what early Christian worship actually looked like, why tradition (and the dreaded ritual) matters, and how one begins to cultivate the mind of Christ through prayer, humility, sacramental life, and participation in the community.

Whether you’re new to Orthodoxy, curious about early Christianity, or simply wrestling with the limits of Western religious paradigms, this episode offers clarity, depth, and a pastoral invitation to encounter the reality of Christ via the fullness of His Church.

Episode highlights:

01:10 – James’s transition (not conversion) from Protestant/Western Christianity into Orthodoxy

07:10 – The unfulfilled Protestant mindset: salvation as a “destination” vs. lifelong journey

10:10 – Western fixation on explanation vs. Orthodox acceptance of mystery

13:10 – What phronema is—and isn’t

14:10 – How Christ Himself taught “the mind of God” through His deeds and teachings

17:10 – The West’s attempt to reconstruct early Christianity through reason

21:10 – The problem of individualism and denominational fragmentation

24:10 – The Church is the physical body of Christ, not some invisible abstraction

28:10 – The Eastern Church didn’t “break off” from Rome

30:10 – Bishops, councils, and why the early Church rejected papal monarchy

34:10 – The sincere desire to rediscover early Christianity

37:10 – How the apostles taught—and preserved—Christ’s actual teachings

41:10 – Early Christian worship: sacred, communal, experiential

46:10 – Oral tradition and why Scripture was never meant to stand alon

49:10 – Understanding the much-maligned Constantine’s role in Church history

51:10 – Why ritual is natural, ancient, and thoroughly Christian

53:10 – How to acquire phronema through lived participation within community

01:03:10 – How to connect with Dr. Jeannie and closing remarks

Quotable Lines

• “Protestants are left craving Jesus Christ without any outlet for that.”
• “The Orthodox mind is patient. You haven’t arrived—you're beginning.”
• “God is not a system to be explained. He is a mystery to be entered.”
• “The Church has not changed. The...