Every Good Boy Does Fine
Every Good Boy Does Fine: A Love Story in Music Lessons
By: Jeremy Denk
[Fulfilled ‘Book with a musician’ for Shelf Reflection’s 2024 Reading Challenge]
“If you forced me to sum it up, I’d tell you that is the point of this book: a love for the steps, the joys of growing and outgrowing and being outgrown. And— just as in the Mozart— how time seems to stop, or even go in reverse, when you are learning.”
When I saw the clever title for this book, I was intrigued to read it.
The cleverness continues within the book in its formatting. The book begins with a prelude and ends with a coda. Paragraph breaks are marked with a ‘rest’ symbol. And the book is divided into three parts: Harmony, Melody, and Rhythm. Each chapter has a playlist of songs that accompany it.
I really liked those little details.
It was evident reading this book how much Denk really does love music. Or at least classical music.
I thought I was a person who loved and appreciated music, but the detail in which Denk describes each song and movement, it’s clear that he is on a different musical wavelength than me.
Although, because I couldn’t relate to such intricate detailed descriptions of classical music, I ended up skimming a good chunk of the last half of the book. I’m sure someone who is familiar with the pieces he is talking about or has the time to listen to all of them while reading (I tried, but some of them were like 30+ minutes long) would be able to understand what he’s talking about, but frankly it just got a little boring to me.
I was hoping for more of a memoir accented by musical analogies, illustrations, and comparisons. But to me it felt more like an annotated playlist sprinkled with some life story staccatos. He does have an annotated playlist as an appendix but I didn’t read it because that felt like double dipping.
Some of the life story segments that were in there were interesting, especially at the beginning as he takes us through the routines of a budding pianist.
I took piano lessons from 2nd grade until high school and there was a part of me that wishes I had taken it for longer and that I had made more of an effort to learn the music theory and chords and how to count better. But then I read about the grueling practice routine and the types of teachers he had and I think, what I was doing or would have ended up doing was so far below that I’m not sure what level I could have even achieved.
He likens the tedious practice to achieve the precision of each technique like this:
“Imagine that you are scrubbing the grout in your bathroom and you are told that removing every last particle of mildew will somehow enable you to deliver the Gettsyburg Address.”
One might ask— is it worth it to go through all that to become a classically performing pianist? Denk would say yes. This was, as the book flap says: “a love letter to the act of teaching.” For Denk it’s more than just performing and playing, it’s about teaching others to understand the music. While he didn’t always like it going through it, when he came out the other side he recognized different things his teachers were doing and how it helped him.
While reading this book, I did reflect on why I don’t have more of an appreciation of classical music. Especially if I play multiple instruments and enjoy music regularly.
He says,
“In general, popular culture demonizes classic music in a way that popular culture is not quite willing to take responsibility for, because most people feel this music is too full of itself, and deserves bullying.”
I think I agree that pop culture, even if we wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘demonizes’ it, does demean it just by the very absence of it anywhere. We only see it displayed at elitist functions for uppity rich people or crazy sociopaths like Silence of the Lambs. This is probably an exaggeration, but still.
There is no doubt that music moves people. Music moves me. All the time. Why am I not moved by classical music? Would I be if I listened to it more? Or do I prefer songs with lyrics? Maybe, but there are many movie scores that I really like— by composers Hans Zimmer or John Williams, or Howard Shore— that don’t contain words. But then I think it might partly be because I have a visual attached to them.
I don’t think classical music needs bullying; we could probably benefit by more of it. But I do think perhaps a ‘calm down’ is in order when it comes to the time commitment. Symphonies average 45-60 minutes. Orchestra concerts are 90 min to 2 hours. And I’m probably showing my lack of knowledge here because I honestly don’t know how that’s all arranged. A symphony is made up of movements but it’s all one “song” right? Orchestra concerts might be made up of multiple songs? I don’t know. I’m not trying to teach you here, I’m just recognizing that people are less likely to ‘get into’ classical music if it’s going to require intense hours of listening and analysis. We’re used to getting short songs on the radio every 3 minutes. Good, bad, or indifferent, it’s reality.
I have no doubt that I did not appreciate his book the way he was hoping, especially since I skimmed so much of it, but I did find these quotes interesting when he talked about harmony, melody, and rhythm.
“Harmonies wander; melodies develop or disintegrate; but only rhythms can truly be free.”
“Harmonies can turn from major to minor in an instant… they act more like water than stone. Melodies are stabler but can be narcissistic, whistling themselves over and over again. But rhythms offer something to hold on to and lean against, a refuge against both change and monotony… a structure that at once gives shelter and permits freedom. And what else is music but a space for us to live in, for awhile.”
I can’t decide if this is profound or dramatic, but there was something about it that drew me in. Maybe it’s because I play bass guitar and rhythm is my job more than harmony or melody.
It feels like the kind of quote that would be interesting to discuss with a variety of musicians. Is Denk saying that rhythm is both stable and also free but harmony and melody is either one or the other? Can rhythm really protect us from change or monotony? A definition of rhythm says “measured movement”— can something measured still be free?
This idea of structure and freedom in conjunction with one another reminds me of God’s design for his people. A lot of people look at Christianity and see rules and structure as if it hinders true freedom— you can’t just ‘do whatever you want.’ But maybe rhythm is analogous? The very structure of it offers freedom. A song without rules, a game without boundaries, is chaos and not pleasant to hear or play. But when we can operate within a structure, we have freedom to thrive.
No analogy is perfect, but those are just some of my reflections on the part of Denk’s book that I actually read decently well.
The very concept of music should be intriguing to us, whether we care about classical music specifically or not.
In Gavin Ortlund’s book, Why God Makes Sense in a World that Doesn’t, he argues for God’s existence by looking at the beauty of the world. One of the things he considers is music.
“Neuroscientists note that music affects the same part of our brains as sex and food. But unlike sex and food, it has no obvious survival function— so, from the standpoint of evolutionary psychology, why does it affect us so emotionally?”
What if music is not just a dream, an accident of biology that worked out this way, but a window— a glimpse of something beyond?
Denk exhorts his readers to “Never stop asking questions about music and its purposes” and he offers some of those purposes: “consolation, an armor against disillusionment, pure pleasure, a diversion, a refuge, and a vehicle for empathy.”
I would add: a connection to the Creator. The emotional connection we have with music is something transcendent. There is a reason it touches us the way it does. And that’s worth thinking about. The beauty of music means something.
Recommendation
I feel like this quote sums up the book well:
“The performer has two tasks: one is to do what’s written in the score— incredibly important; and the other, even more important, is to find everything that’s not.”
That’s what Denk sets out to do in this book. To look at what the score tells us but also to get at what it’s not telling us—all within the confines of his life and work.
If you have absolutely no appreciation for music, reading this book could go one of two ways: it’s going to be a slog and you’ll quit reading pretty early on; or it will inspire you to care about music because you’ll see it in a new light.
If you love classical music, you will probably love this book.
If you are somewhere in the middle, you’ll find the bits and pieces that resonate with you like I did, but you may also feel like it gets a little long and overly detailed and you might find yourself skimming more and more.
I give him props for the musical creativity, but I think if the book was a little shorter, it would be easier to recommend.
[Content Advisory: a handful of swear words including the f-word; a few comments about being gay and fooling around with some of his friends]
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