Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons

by Jeremy Denk

Hardcover, 2022

Status

Available

Collection

Biography

Genres

Publication

Random House (2022), 384 pages

Description

"In this searching and funny memoir, based off his popular New Yorker article, renowned pianist Jeremy Denk traces an implausible journey. Life is difficult enough as a precocious, temperamental, and insufferable six-year-old piano prodigy in New Jersey. But then a family meltdown forces a move to New Mexico, far from classical music's nerve centers, and he has to please a new taskmaster while navigating cacti, and the perils of junior high school. Escaping from New Mexico at last, he meets a bewildering cast of college music teachers, ranging from boring to profound, and experiences a series of humiliations and triumphs, to find his way as one of the world's greatest living pianists, a MacArthur "Genius," and a frequent performer at Carnegie Hall. There are few writers working today who are willing to eloquently explore both the joys and miseries of artistic practice. Hours of daily repetition, mystifying early advice, pressure from parents and teachers who drove him on-an ongoing battle of talent against two enemies: boredom and insecurity. As we meet various teachers, with cruel and kind streaks, Denk composes a fraught love letter to the act of teaching. He brings you behind the scenes, to look at what motivates both student and teacher, locked in a complicated and psychologically perilous relationship. In his imaginative prose, Denk explores how classical music is relevant to "real life," despite its distance in time. He dives into pieces and composers that have shaped him-Bach, Mozart, Schubert, and Brahms, among others-and gives unusual lessons on melody, harmony, and rhythm. Why and how do these fundamental elements have such a visceral effect on us? He tries to sum up many of the lessons he has gotten, to repay the debt of all his amazing teachers; to remind us that music is our creation, and that we need to keep asking questions about its purpose"--… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member reader1009

nonfiction/memoir - a renowned concert pianist (incidentaly queer but he doesn't realize it until late in his story) thinks back on his educational journey and the science and art of what he's learned.

There's a lot of music theory in here, and lots of (sometimes conflicting) advice from various

teachers, but Denk's enthusiasm for the subject makes it interesting, even poetic. This is one that you'll enjoy reading slowly, and one that will have you reaching for some new Classical recordings to listen to (see the annotated playlist at the end of the book), if not a keyboard or instrument to try taking up again.

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LibraryThing member JulieStielstra

Discursive, enthusiastic, ebullient, deeply knowledgeable and a sparkling writer, Denk has cracked open a door for me (a little way!) to the mystery of musicianship. I am one of those "I know nothing about music but I know what I like" people, and what I like is classical music. I know more about

visual arts, and have long harbored the notion that artists' eyes simply operate differently from most peoples'. Denk shows us how musicians' ears, brains, and muscles operate differently too. From boyhood on, he hears and feels and responds to music note by note, vibration by vibration, schooling his fingers and wrists to influence and connect (or separate, or delay, or modulate) each note to aspire to some mental image of how it should sound and what those notes "want to do," and manages to explain that experience in words someone like me can understand. His parents - in a long and difficult marriage - seem somewhat puzzled by what son Jeremy wants to do, but they buy him lessons, a piano, ferry him off to competitions and teachers, through long years of learning. Denk pays tribute to his many teachers and their varied eccentricities, insights, contradictions, encouragements and browbeating - with great affection and gratitude for what he learned from them even as they made him cry or rage. He is disarmingly frank about his own foibles and foolishness throughout this coming-of-age-and-out memoir without ever drowning out the music. He goes into musicologist mode in several chapters on harmony, melody and rhythm that remain well beyond my comprehension, but is slily trying to tie these principles in to the life story he is telling.

I chuckled when he complained about Bach's Goldberg Variations and how the trouble with them is everyone constantly asking which Glenn Gould version you prefer. I have long held a firm opinion on that. Then I found Denk's own recording, listened to it, and recoiled... nothing like either, and I didn't like it. But then I began to apply a little of what I learned from Denk himself in this engaging book as I listened, and thought I began to hear what he might be doing, and my appreciation vaulted. To be entertained and educated - nice work, Jeremy Denk.

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LibraryThing member bostonbibliophile

really enjoyable memoir about love, life and music.

LibraryThing member jwhenderson

If you love classical music and, better yet, play the piano yourself this memoir is for you. Jeremy Denk has managed to combine a tour of classical music for the piano with a very personal memoir of his life as both a student and performer of that music. The result is a unique journey for the

reader.

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LibraryThing member jonerthon

Like the author, I grew up in New Mexico and found it to be a lovely–if somewhat limited–place to grow up for a gay boy with great ambitions. That is likely where the commonalities of Denk and I end. But still, what an aspiring professional pianist needs to succeed–in Las Cruces, at the great

conservatory of Oberlin, and in front of numerous teachers–and how to get there form the narrative of this title. I just finished it at the front end of my holiday break, and wish there were 20 more chapters.

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