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Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons Spiral-Bound | March 21, 2023
Jeremy Denk
★★★★☆+ from 1,001 to 10,000 ratings
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Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story, in Music Lessons
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A memoir that is also an immersive exploration of classical music—its power, its meaning, and what it can teach us about ourselves—from the MacArthur "Genius" Grant-winning pianist
In Every Good Boy Does Fine, renowned pianist Jeremy Denk traces an implausible artistic journey. Life is difficult enough as a precocious, temperamental (and possibly insufferable) six-year-old piano prodigy in a small town in New Jersey. But then a family meltdown forces a move to New Mexico, far from classical music’s nerve centers, and Denk has to please a new taskmaster while navigating the perils of junior high school. Escaping to college in Ohio at sixteen, he meets a bewildering cast of music teachers, experiences a series of triumphs and humiliations, and ultimately finds 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 capable of so deeply illuminating the joys and miseries of artistic practice -- the hours of daily repetition, the mystifying early advice, and the pressure from parents and teachers who drove him on in the ongoing battle between talent and its two natural enemies: boredom and insecurity. As Denk introduces us to his various instructors, with their cruel and kind streaks, he is also, subtly and brilliantly, composing a love letter to the act of teaching. “The performer has two tasks,” he writes. “One is to do what’s written in the score—incredibly important—and the other, even more important, is to do everything that’s not.”
In lively, endlessly imaginative prose, Denk explains how classical music is relevant to “real life,” despite its formalities and its distance in time. He dives deeply into the pieces and composers that have shaped him—Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, and Brahms, among others—and offers lessons on melody, harmony, and rhythm. Why, he asks, does music have such a visceral effect on us? And how can a series of notes, arranged on a page, move us so profoundly?
In Every Good Boy Does Fine, Denk sets out to relay the most meaningful lessons he has received, and to repay the debt of all his teachers. He also reminds us that music is our creation, and that we must never stop asking questions about its purpose.
In Every Good Boy Does Fine, renowned pianist Jeremy Denk traces an implausible artistic journey. Life is difficult enough as a precocious, temperamental (and possibly insufferable) six-year-old piano prodigy in a small town in New Jersey. But then a family meltdown forces a move to New Mexico, far from classical music’s nerve centers, and Denk has to please a new taskmaster while navigating the perils of junior high school. Escaping to college in Ohio at sixteen, he meets a bewildering cast of music teachers, experiences a series of triumphs and humiliations, and ultimately finds 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 capable of so deeply illuminating the joys and miseries of artistic practice -- the hours of daily repetition, the mystifying early advice, and the pressure from parents and teachers who drove him on in the ongoing battle between talent and its two natural enemies: boredom and insecurity. As Denk introduces us to his various instructors, with their cruel and kind streaks, he is also, subtly and brilliantly, composing a love letter to the act of teaching. “The performer has two tasks,” he writes. “One is to do what’s written in the score—incredibly important—and the other, even more important, is to do everything that’s not.”
In lively, endlessly imaginative prose, Denk explains how classical music is relevant to “real life,” despite its formalities and its distance in time. He dives deeply into the pieces and composers that have shaped him—Bach, Mozart, Schubert, Beethoven, and Brahms, among others—and offers lessons on melody, harmony, and rhythm. Why, he asks, does music have such a visceral effect on us? And how can a series of notes, arranged on a page, move us so profoundly?
In Every Good Boy Does Fine, Denk sets out to relay the most meaningful lessons he has received, and to repay the debt of all his teachers. He also reminds us that music is our creation, and that we must never stop asking questions about its purpose.
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Original Binding: Trade Paperback
Pages: 384 pages
ISBN-10: 0812985885
Item Weight: 0.6 lbs
Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8.0 inches
Customer Reviews: 4 out of 5 stars 1,001 to 10,000 ratings
“Wildly ambitious, far exceeding the author’s modest description of it as ‘the story of piano lessons.’ . . . [Jeremy] Denk writes feelingly on the artist’s self-dramatization, the formation of a self . . . the conviction that you have something special to contribute to the appreciation of what you are performing, grasping whatever gives you the audacity to present yourself before the public. These are as much the subject of the book as its ostensible subject, piano lessons; these are life lessons.”—Simon Callow, The New York Review of Books
“Lucid and bittersweet . . . Like Bach, whose ‘Goldberg Variations’ he has recorded with great rigor and warmth, Denk knows how to spin rich counterpoint out of multiple lines. And like Mozart, who with a harmonic sleight of hand can find the sublime in mere scales, Denk knows how to make art out of ‘a love for the steps, the joys of growing and outgrowing and being outgrown.’”—The New York Times
“This one-of-a-kind musical autobiography by one of our most brilliant and perceptive classical musicians is part illumination of the essence of the musical discourse and part deeply personal, sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious confession of the long and tortuous road to maturity and mastery of a sublime art. Denk’s teachers, alternately inspiring, exasperating, demanding, adoring, and deploring, are evoked in delicious detail in a book that is as sophisticated as a Bach fugue and as American as Tater Tots and Kmart.”—John Adams, composer
“Sometimes you read the first paragraph and know you’ll read to the end. They say writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Jeremy Denk’s book reminds us that dancing about architecture sounds sort of great.”—John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead
“Among the many virtues of this funny and moving book—its frankness, its generous preservation of wisdom from mentors past, its breathtaking insights about how and why music affects us—one stands out above the rest: It makes me want to practice.”—Conrad Tao, pianist and composer
“A boy tumbles into manhood while learning classical piano in this raucous coming-of-age memoir . . . Denk’s sparkling prose, frankness, and humor make for an indelible portrait of the musician as a bewildered kid.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Lucid and bittersweet . . . Like Bach, whose ‘Goldberg Variations’ he has recorded with great rigor and warmth, Denk knows how to spin rich counterpoint out of multiple lines. And like Mozart, who with a harmonic sleight of hand can find the sublime in mere scales, Denk knows how to make art out of ‘a love for the steps, the joys of growing and outgrowing and being outgrown.’”—The New York Times
“This one-of-a-kind musical autobiography by one of our most brilliant and perceptive classical musicians is part illumination of the essence of the musical discourse and part deeply personal, sometimes painful, sometimes hilarious confession of the long and tortuous road to maturity and mastery of a sublime art. Denk’s teachers, alternately inspiring, exasperating, demanding, adoring, and deploring, are evoked in delicious detail in a book that is as sophisticated as a Bach fugue and as American as Tater Tots and Kmart.”—John Adams, composer
“Sometimes you read the first paragraph and know you’ll read to the end. They say writing about music is like dancing about architecture. Jeremy Denk’s book reminds us that dancing about architecture sounds sort of great.”—John Jeremiah Sullivan, author of Pulphead
“Among the many virtues of this funny and moving book—its frankness, its generous preservation of wisdom from mentors past, its breathtaking insights about how and why music affects us—one stands out above the rest: It makes me want to practice.”—Conrad Tao, pianist and composer
“A boy tumbles into manhood while learning classical piano in this raucous coming-of-age memoir . . . Denk’s sparkling prose, frankness, and humor make for an indelible portrait of the musician as a bewildered kid.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Jeremy Denk is one of America's foremost pianists. Winner of a MacArthur "Genius" Fellowship and the Avery Fisher Prize, Denk is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His recordings have reached No. 1 on the Billboard classical charts and featured on many "best of the year" lists. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New Republic, The Guardian, and The New York Times Book Review. Denk graduated from Oberlin College, Indiana University, and the Juilliard School. He lives in New York City.
Author Residence: New York, New York
Author Hometown: Las Cruces, New Mexico
Author Residence: New York, New York
Author Hometown: Las Cruces, New Mexico