RIP Noah Adams
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NPR’s Noah Adams has passed away. I never regularly listened to All Things Considered, so I only learned of him because of his book Piano Lessons, I think my mother sent me the book IIRC. I was living in Japan and started learning piano in 1999, I think I got the book the next year. (although maybe I learned of the book from PW? I don’t recall now)
I remember really loving the book, and having a book about another adult learning piano meant a lot to me at the time. Maybe I’ll read it again. Or listen to it, presumably there’s an audio version now. I wonder if he’s the narrator, that would be nice!
RIP Noah.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/24/business/media/noah-adams-dead.html
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Nope, no audio book version. Too bad
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0385318219?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback
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I started re-reading this in September, when I started playing again. My original copy is lost (probably lent it to a friend), so Mr. AM gave me another copy for my birthday.
I read this book and shared it with Mr. AM, back in 1999 maybe? He surprised me with a trip to Sonata piano camp in 2000. I went for several more years after that. Life-changing; I have many enduring friendships because of that.
Here’s a review of the book from the NYT archive. She wasn’t impressed!
About the Archive
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.PIANO LESSONS Music, Love, & True Adventures. By Noah Adams. Delacorte, $20.95.
Two years ago, when he was in his early 50's, Noah Adams decided to learn to play the piano. "Piano Lessons" is ostensibly an account of what happens over the following 12 months, as he purchases an $11,000 Steinway upright and attempts to make good on his resolution. The trouble is, the demands of Mr. Adams's professional life -- he is a host of "All Things Considered" on National Public Radio -- make it hard for him to find time to practice, and, despite the book's title, he doesn't actually take lessons. As a result, Mr. Adams's narrative is fleshed out with extended digressions both musical and otherwise: histories of pianists, piano making and piano pedagogy; transcripts of the author's radio interviews with classical and popular pianists; a meeting with the best-selling novelist John Grisham. It is a tribute to Mr. Adams's warm, stylish writing that we are willing to stay with him for the duration, even though it is quickly apparent that an account of his pianistic career by itself would be no longer than a magazine article. (A more suitable title for this book might have been "Memoir With Incidental Music.") When Mr. Adams does sit down at the piano, his self-deprecating accounts of his struggles -- his teacher is a computer that dispenses tips like "You came in about 24 beats late" -- are engaging, although the narrative occasionally slows to largo with finger-by-finger descriptions of his efforts to master the keyboard. In the book's most involving chapter, Mr. Adams goes to music camp, and -- miracle of miracles -- actually performs a simple piece in recital. As the year progresses, he writes with feeling about the ability of music to summon up memory. And that, at bottom, is what this pleasant book-length medley is really about. Margalit Fox
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There was another similar book, Play It Again: An Amateur Against the Impossible by former Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger, who wrote about learning Chopin's Ballade in G minor. The book also weaves his life into the story of learning the ballade. He talked about using social media and his connections to musical elites — like Alfred Brendel. It wasn't a life-changing endeavor, but it was a pleasant read. I liked it a bit more than Noah's book — though I enjoyed both. Anyone with piano lust always gets my attention.
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