Every Good Boy Does Fine
A Love Story, in Music Lessons
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Narrated by:
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Jeremy Denk
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By:
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Jeremy Denk
About this listen
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A beautifully written, witty memoir that is also an immersive exploration of classical music—its power, its meanings, and what it can teach us about ourselves—from the MacArthur “Genius” Grant–winning pianist
LONGLISTED FOR THE ANDREW CARNEGIE MEDAL • “Jeremy Denk has written a love letter to the music, and especially to the music teachers, in his life.”—Conrad Tao, pianist and composer
ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR: The New Yorker
In Every Good Boy Does Fine, renowned pianist Jeremy Denk traces an implausible journey. His life is already a little tough as a precocious, temperamental six-year-old piano prodigy in New Jersey, and then a family meltdown forces a move to New Mexico. There, Denk must please a new taskmaster, an embittered but devoted professor, while navigating junior high school. At sixteen he escapes to college in Ohio, only to encounter a bewildering new cast of music teachers, both kind and cruel. After many humiliations and a few triumphs, he ultimately finds his way as a world-touring pianist, a MacArthur “Genius,” and a frequent performer at Carnegie Hall.
Many classical music memoirs focus on famous musicians and professional accomplishments, but this book focuses on the everyday: neighborhood teacher, high school orchestra, local conductor. There are few writers capable of so deeply illuminating the trials of artistic practice—hours of daily repetition, mystifying advice, pressure from parents and teachers. But under all this struggle is a love letter to the act of teaching.
In lively, endlessly imaginative prose, Denk dives deeply into the pieces and composers that have shaped him—Bach, Mozart, and Brahms, among others—and offers lessons on melody, harmony, and rhythm. How do melodies work? Why is harmony such a mystery to most people? Why are teachers so obsessed with the metronome?
In Every Good Boy Does Fine, Denk shares the most meaningful lessons of his life, and tries to repay a debt to his teachers. He also reminds us that we must never stop asking questions about music and its purposes: consolation, an armor against disillusionment, pure pleasure, a diversion, a refuge, and a vehicle for empathy.
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Critic reviews
“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
“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)
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The oldest daughter of revered composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein offers a rare look at her father on the centennial of his birth in a deeply intimate and broadly evocative memoir. The composer of On the Town and West Side Story, chief conductor of the New York Philharmonic, television star, humanitarian, friend of the powerful and influential, and the life of every party, Leonard Bernstein was an enormous celebrity during one of the headiest periods of American cultural life, as well as the most protean musician in 20th-century America.
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Can't say enough good things
- By barbara on 10-10-18
By: Jamie Bernstein
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Facing the Music
- My Story
- By: Jennifer Knapp
- Narrated by: Jennifer Knapp
- Length: 8 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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At the top of her career in the Christian music industry, Jennifer Knapp quit. A few years later, she publicly revealed she is gay. A media frenzy ensued, and many of her former fans were angry with what they saw as turning her back on God. But through it all, she held on to the truth that had guided her from the beginning. In this memoir, she finally tells her story: of her troubled childhood, the love of music that pulled her through, her dramatic conversion to Christianity, her rise to stardom, her abrupt departure from Christian contemporary music....
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I'm a fan. I have a history with Jennifer Knapp.
- By Steve Lee, Sr. on 01-26-23
By: Jennifer Knapp
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The Priority List
- A Teacher's Final Quest to Discover Life's Greatest Lessons
- By: David Menasche
- Narrated by: David Menasche
- Length: 4 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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David Menasche lived for his work as a high school English teacher. His passion inspired his students, and between lessons on Shakespeare and sentence structure, he forged a unique bond with his kids, buoying them through personal struggles while sharing valuable life lessons.
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Truly Inspiring!!
- By Trish on 07-13-14
By: David Menasche
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A Stitch of Time
- The Year a Brain Injury Changed My Language and Life
- By: Lauren Marks
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 11 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Lauren Marks was 27 when an aneurysm ruptured in her brain and left her fighting for her life. She woke up in a hospital soon after with serious deficiencies to her reading, speaking, and writing abilities, and an unfamiliar diagnosis: aphasia. This would be shocking news for anyone, but Lauren was a voracious reader, an actress, director, dramaturg, and pursuing her PhD. At any other period of her life, this diagnosis would have been a devastating blow. But she woke up...different.
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Absolutely wonderful book
- By SJMT on 01-27-19
By: Lauren Marks
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A Fractured Mind
- My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder
- By: Robert B. Oxnam
- Narrated by: William Dufris
- Length: 9 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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At the peak of his professional career, after having led the Asia Society for nearly a decade, Oxnam was haunted by periodic blackouts and episodic rages. After his family and friends intervened, Oxnam received help from a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffery Smith, and entered a rehab center. It wasn't until 1990, during a session with Dr. Smith, that the first of Oxnam's 11 alternate personalities, an angry young boy named Tommy, suddenly emerged.
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A solid look at a rare disorder
- By O. Canosa on 11-23-07
By: Robert B. Oxnam
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Paul McCartney
- A Life
- By: Peter Ames Carlin
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 13 hrs
- Unabridged
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The best-selling author of the definitive biography of former Beach Boy Brian Wilson offers new insight into the life and music of Paul McCartney, one of the world's most popular and influential musicians. Informed by new, exclusive interviews with friends, bandmates, and collaborators, the book describes McCartney's many triumphs as well as his failures, from the Beatles era through his decade with Wings and his subsequent solo career.
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Great...But
- By Diego on 05-02-10
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The Soloist
- A Lost Dream, an Unlikely Friendship, and the Redemptive Power of Music
- By: Steve Lopez
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 6 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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When journalist Steve Lopez sees Nathaniel Ayers playing his heart out on a two-string violin on Los Angeles' skid row, he finds it impossible to walk away. More than 30 years ago, Ayers was a promising classical bass student at Juilliard - ambitious, charming, and also one of the few African-Americans there - until he gradually lost his ability to function, overcome by schizophrenia.
Over time, the two men form a bond and Lopez imagines that he might be able to change Ayers' life. The Soloist is a beautifully told story of devotion in the face of seemingly unbeatable challenges.
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Fantastic Audiobook
- By reggie p on 06-26-08
By: Steve Lopez
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Turn Around Bright Eyes
- A Karaoke Love Story
- By: Rob Sheffield
- Narrated by: Rob Sheffield
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Turn Around Bright Eyes picks up Sheffield’s story right after Love Is a Mix Tape. He is a young widower devastated by grief, trying to build a new life in a new town after his wife’s death. As a writer for Rolling Stone, he naturally takes solace in music. But that’s when he discovers the sublime ridiculousness of karaoke, and despite the fact that he can’t carry a tune, he begins to find his voice.
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Witty (sometimes sad) love story/Soundtrack
- By Wally Tonra on 05-07-15
By: Rob Sheffield
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Scale
- A Novel
- By: Keith Buckley
- Narrated by: Keith Buckley
- Length: 5 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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As a hopeless and struggling indie rock musician, Ray Goldman's best chance of discovering any beauty and purpose in his dysfunctional life will come only when he ceases to struggle against life itself. Scale chronicles Ray Goldman’s journey downward through the adversarial trials that sometimes prove necessary in facilitating an eventual ascent into truth and happiness. The odd chapters of the novel find Ray, now a 31-year-old guitar player, seeking fulfillment in the wake of a life-altering tragedy.
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Poor Presentation
- By mmacedonia on 04-16-19
By: Keith Buckley
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Failing Up
- How to Take Risks, Aim Higher, and Never Stop Learning
- By: Leslie Odom Jr.
- Narrated by: Leslie Odom Jr.
- Length: 3 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Leslie Odom Jr. burst on the scene in 2015, originating the role of Aaron Burr in the Broadway musical phenomenon Hamilton. Since then he has performed for sold-out audiences, sung for the Obamas at the White House, and won a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical. But before he landed the role of a lifetime in one of the biggest musicals of all time, Odom put in years of hard work as a singer and an actor.
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When you take one step, the universe takes two
- By Amy Aguilar on 04-11-18
By: Leslie Odom Jr.
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Where the Past Begins
- A Writer's Memoir
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Amy Tan
- Length: 14 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving from her childhood in Oakland and growing up with her Chinese parents through her success as a novelist, Amy Tan delves into her creative interests in music, the paralysis of beginning a new project, journal writing, and travelling. Where the Past Begins chronicles the making of a writer. With characteristic humor and poignant observation, Tan weaves a nontraditional introspective narrative that is as complex and vibrant as this beloved American novelist's fiction.
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Narration Issues
- By Sara on 12-14-17
By: Amy Tan
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The Creative Habit
- Learn It and Use It for Life
- By: Twyla Tharp
- Narrated by: Lauren Fortgang
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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All it takes to make creativity a part of your life is the willingness to make it a habit. It is the product of preparation and effort, and is within reach of everyone. Whether you are a painter, musician, businessperson, or simply an individual yearning to put your creativity to use, The Creative Habit provides you with 32 practical exercises based on the lessons Twyla Tharp has learned in her remarkable 35-year career.
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A much-needed shout-out to good habits
- By cvstuart on 03-27-13
By: Twyla Tharp
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Ordinary Light
- A Memoir
- By: Tracy K. Smith
- Narrated by: Tracy K. Smith
- Length: 11 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Tracy K. Smith has a fairly typical upbringing in suburban California: the youngest in a family of five children raised with limitless affection and a firm belief in God by a stay-at-home mother and an engineer father. But after spending a summer in Alabama at her grandmother's home, she returns to California with a new sense of what it means for her to be Black: from her mother's memories of picking cotton as a girl in her father's field for pennies a bushel to her parents' involvement in the Civil Rights Movement.
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Simply spoken - poetic
- By CarolynneRHarris on 04-27-15
By: Tracy K. Smith
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The Ballad of Bob Dylan
- A Portrait
- By: Daniel Mark Epstein
- Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 15 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a vivid, full-bodied portrait of one of the most influential artists of the 20th-century - a man widely regarded as the most important lyricist America has ever produced. Acclaimed poet and biographer Daniel Mark Epstein frames Dylan against the backdrop of four seminal concerts - all of which he attended. Beautifully written, The Ballad of Bob Dylan is a unique, eye-opening portrait of an artist who has transformed generations and continues to inspire and surprise today.
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Excellent book, excellent narration
- By L chandler on 12-22-11
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A world-renowned composer of symphonies, operas, and film scores, Philip Glass has, almost single-handedly, crafted the dominant sound of late twentieth-century classical music. Rapturous in its ability to depict the creative process, Words without Music allows listeners to experience that sublime moment of creative fusion when life merges with art. Biography lovers will be inspired by the story of a precocious Baltimore boy who entered college at age fifteen before traveling to Paris to study under the legendary Nadia Boulanger; Glass devotees will be fascinated by the stories behind Einstein on the Beach and Satyagraha, among so many other works.
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CREATIVE ADULT
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The War on Music
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This book offers a major reassessment of classical music in the 20th century. John Mauceri argues that the history of music during this span was shaped by three major wars of that century: World War I, World War II, and the Cold War.
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Arianna Warsaw-Fan Rauch’s life-long fascination with classical music has taken her through Juilliard and into the shiny world of symphony halls and international concert tours. She’s loved classical music her whole life. But she’s also hated classical music her whole life. After all, if you can like Beyoncé without liking Bieber, you can certainly like Brahms without liking Bach—especially since they were born 148 years apart and the thing we call “classical music” is really just centuries of compositions shoved into one hodge-podge of a genre.
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The Rest Is Noise takes the listener inside the labyrinth of modern music, from turn-of-the-century Vienna to downtown New York in the '60s and '70s. We meet the maverick personalities and follow the rise of mass culture on this sweeping tour of 20th-century history through its music.
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What listeners say about Every Good Boy Does Fine
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Jeff
- 05-30-22
Musical examples make this shine
I started reading the book but then was told that the audiobook had musical examples, which completely changed the reading / listening experience.
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1 person found this helpful
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- James
- 03-29-22
Frazier
I enjoyed the authors journey but couldn’t help imagining it as a spin off of the TV series Frazier. The main character, of course, being Niles Crane.
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- Lisa Fuentes
- 08-27-22
Brilliant
This is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever read. Denk is not only a brilliant pianist but also a brilliant writer. I read the book on paper and then listened to Denk’s reading. He enhances the experience with the excerpts he plays. Memorable.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Keith Sipos
- 11-30-23
The best reader, in all of audible
I’ve never heard a narrator, more expressive and impactful.. Jeremy Denk’s reading of his own book accompanied with his exceptional piano playing is transforming. I truly will listen to this again. I wished the book went on for another 600 pages.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Addison
- 05-05-22
Good but not great
I read this on the recommendation of a friend. I loved the book initially. It felt a little bogged down in the middle at times. Then, I picked up again towards the end. The ending feels a bit unresolved though. The writing is superb. Such beautiful descriptions of both life and music. But, at times it was a little boring in the details of it all. Still, I’m glad I read it.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Linda Passman
- 04-17-22
A complete pleasure
The best book on music by a musician I have ever read. Honest and clear. Bridges the gap between performing virtuoso and ordinary music lover. Imparts major insights into the importance of the student teacher relationship with humor, sensitivity and insight. The Superb writing is a bonus.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 10-09-22
Best Audio Book I’ve Listened To
The elegant incorporation of music played by the author into the text takes this to a new place. The text is great on its own, but the addition of the music enhances the experience greatly. Mr. Denk is also a very good reader, and that adds to the effect as well. If you like music and in particular classical music, this book is a must listen.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Ruth Dundas
- 07-31-22
Stunning
One of the most amazing performances I have ever “read..” Jeremy Denk takes us on a roller coaster of brilliance, music, love and metaphor. Can’t wait to listen to it again!
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- Joey
- 09-06-24
How determined he was .
I'm enjoying listening to this book .I can identify with the story . I just couldn't take Piano lessons until now , At the age of 64 I'm taking Piano lessons and I'm enjoying every moment . Thank you 😊.
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- T. Woolsey
- 11-22-22
Great book.
I’m a pianist and have taught piano for 50 years. This was the best book I’ve ever read about the difficult process of training as a musician. I loved reading about the inspiring teaching of Georgy Sebok as much as I loved the anecdotes about teaching less than sterling students. Denk is marvelous musician with a beautifully imaginative and sensitive way of talking about music. He’s also got a wonderful sense of humor! I loved this book.
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2 people found this helpful