Not only does Joey Murphy make some good music, but she has a pretty good philosophy to go along with it.

The Murphy Hypothesis, she calls it. And it's something along these lines:

"The only point is just making some music. You don't need to spend much money or do anything special. Just let the music speak for itself."

That's exactly what her CD, credited to the Murphy Hypothesis, does. "Low Lights in the Living Room: Songs 1988 to 2003" is Joey and her guitar, showing off her playing, singing and songwriting in the simplest of settings.

"This is just me in my living room with a microphone," she says. But the nine originals one the disc ring through clearly, with her soulful voice in the forefront, delivering instrospective lyrics over some catchy acoustic riffs.

Check out clips from "Low Lights in the Living Room" in our Sound Files

Joey, who's originally from the Harrisburg area (Susquehanna Township, right next door to my own hometown of Paxtang), grew up around music. Her mother taught it, and a cousin worked at a store nearby called the House of Bluegrass. She got her first guitar at 7 and remembers entertaining classmates during show-and-tell by playing along to Grand Funk Railroad's "I'm Your Captain" (she's still a big fan of '70s classic rock).

She's been playing shows and writing since she was a teenager, and has stepped up her musical activities in the past few years. This summer, she joined with fellow musicians Eve Goodman and Carol Lee Espy to start a songwriters' collective called Born to Cook (a tongue-in-cheek takeoff on the old Springsteen songs, she says, pointing out what girls allegedly were born to do.)

They've been working to schedule concerts at "just about every venue in Pittsburgh, anything we can do to develop the songwriting scene in town." The shows feature several artists on the bill, and when the friends of each attend, it makes for a good-sized crowd and "everyone gets exposed to new music."

Plus they've been trying some "gig swapping," kind of an exchange program involving musicians in other cities who get to visit Pittsburgh, while artists from here travel there.

Through their efforts, Joey says, "You've got a really vibrant community for songwriters and the people who want to listen to music."

PHOTO: Joey Murphy played over the weekend at Leaf & Bean in the Strip District, which hosts acoustic Saturdays featuring Bill Toms and Tom Breiding. (My "action shots" of her weren't too hot, so we tried something artsy with an old window box in the background.) She'll be playing with those guys when they have their CD release party in October.