Noah Adams (1) (1942–)

I LOVED this book. How come, I wonder? Lemme see, maybe it was an early reference to the resonant bass chords from Jerry Lee Lewis' fifties recording of "Whole Lot of Shakin' Goin' On" which really hooked me. Or it could have been Adams' casual remarks about growing up in southern Ohio (which, as everyone knows, is ALmost Kentucky), with the jacket flap photo of his 13 year-old self w/ a modified DA and shades - a persona that I once went through too. But most probably it was his show more self-professed life-long fascination with music and musicians - music of ALL kinds; there's no evidence of musical snobbery here, although Adams obviously knows a helluva lot more about classical music than I ever will. In fact the piece he picks to try to learn in the course of a year of studying the piano is Schumann's "Traumerei," a composition which I don't know at all (did I spell that composer's name correctly?), but it becomes evident in the course of the narrative, that it is NOT an easy piece to learn, and certainly not for a beginner. So it wasn't the classical part that drew me in. No, it was the all-music-is-good attitude that Adams displayed that attracted me. And maybe his nearly year-long attempt to learn to play (by ear) "Misty," an old jazz favorite of mine (and yes, I do know the Eastwood film too). His talks and interviews with music teachers - in downtown NYC and on a mountaintop in Vermont, as well as a whole family of piano teachers in a music camp for adults - are also arrestingly interesting, as are his talks with Minnesota pianists Lori Line and Butch Thompson, who talked of his truck-driving father, who taught him to love the big band and jazz music of the 40s, while Butch tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to introduce his dad to Jerry Lee and Elvis.

"He did like, my dad, to hear Elvis sing 'Peace in the Valley'."

Glen Gould, Horowitz, Mancini, Eubie Blake, Pinetop Perkins, Teddy Wilson - so many piano players and "pianists" are mentioned here that it's hard to remember them all. But the thing is, Piano Lessons is really mostly a love story. It's about loving music, of course, but it's also, at least peripherally, about how much Adams loves his wife and how he keeps on plugging away over the course of a busy year, trying to make time to learn the piano, so he can play this one beautiful piece ("Traumerei") as a special gift to her. And he succeeds. Admittedly, he makes mistakes and falters, but it's a gift that matters. And this is a book that matters too, especially if you are a music lover. Bravo, Maestro Adams! show less

At age 52 Noah Adams, former host of NPR's All Things Considered, gave into his secret desire to learn to play the piano and went...pretty much on impulse...to Steinway and bought an upright. This book recounts his first year after the purchase.

There are a lot of things that make this book fun. It's full of little anecdotes from his years of interviewing performers. It has plenty of humorous moments, both at the piano and away from it. It's written with an engaging style that makes the pages show more fly, clearly communicating his love for piano music.

Perhaps most of all, this isn't some tale of overwhelming inspiration or secret genius that leaves you feeling terribly mortal in a world of giants—he's bad about practicing, he freezes up in recitals, he's overly ambitious ("there's this piece Horowitz plays that I'd like to learn this first year"), he can't decide on how he should learn (self-teaching course?, workshops?), he gets discouraged a lot when gratification is slow. In other words, he comes across as a completely real everyman.

I had a lot of fun with this one. show less

Absorbing and informative history of one of the bastions of public radio. The book, organized by decade, generally does a very good job interweaving the history of NPR with the stories of the wars, political currents and cultural events of the day that its reporters and commentators covered, along with oral histories by various celebrities and lesser-known folk like the hard-working reference librarians. (The glaring exception is the section on the '80s -- its transitions from one big event show more to another felt somehow clunky and sometimes jumped around in chronology in forced attempts to link them thematically.) One also gets some wonderful insights into the behind-the-scenes action, and the book makes sure not to paper over the occasional financial crisis or management errors -- most notably, two separate decisions not to pick up "Prairie Home Companion" and "This American Life". All in all, a good read for NPR fans and probably anyone else interested in radio journalism. show less

When I was in high school, the only music genre I liked was classical-- hence, I put in a lot of time listening to WGUC, Cincinnati's NPR affiliate. I quickly grew to enjoy the non-music programming as well; they didn't air Morning Edition, but All Things Considered grew to be vital, especially in the time after 9/11. I didn't hear much NPR during my college years, but since acquiring a job (and hence, a commute), I find myself listening to it almost every time I drive. I even podcast it show more now, listening to both Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! and On the Media on a regular basis.

All this is to say that maybe I'm biased, but there's not really a better source of good journalism than NPR. "This Is NPR" celebrates the first forty years of the broadcaster, from when it began as protesters swarmed D.C., up to the coverage of the Chinese earthquakes. Criticisms definitely turn up, but it's clearly written by a group of people who believe in NPR and what it does. There are a lot of great stories, large and small, from how they used to edit the tape manually-- still working on the end of All Things Considered after the beginning had started-- to battles for funding to tales of the foreign bureau in the middle of revolutions and riots. It's chock-full of fascinating details that you'll be repeating to those around you as you read (much to their chagrin). show less