In "Tickling the Ivories." author Keith Jacobsen begins with some thoughts about the piano. "In my early days, and those of my parents and grandparents, a house with a room big enough to contain an upright piano would usually have one, whether or not it was played. Not so now. Rarely is it just a matter of room. I knew a family with a spacious house who told me they did not have enough room for a piano for their children. This was evident nonsense."

More interesting thoughts on the piano: "It does not do what we expect our modern machines to do. It does not download or upload. It does not send or receive messages on social media. You cannot Skype or Zoom on it. If for any reason it stops working altogether it cannot reboot. Maintenance and repair require traditional manual and aural skills of the highest quality, learned over many years and not available cheaply. You cannot solve a piano's problems by calling someone up and getting them to talk you through pressing a few buttons. A piano does not do anything apart from what your fingers, hands and arms tell it to do. Even then it keeps no memory of what you have done for the next time. It is not difficult to make a noise from the piano but it is hard work getting anything worthwhile out of it. It is seriously old-fashioned."

Woven through the book are the many difficulties Jacobsen faced growing up in an extremely dysfunctional family. I couldn't help but feel bad for him with his depressed, narcissistic mother and his checked-out dad. Music helped Keith deal with all that he had to face at home, although even then he struggled since his mom tended to get rid of pianos and other things that helped him cope.

I enjoyed hearing about the various ways that Keith used music. He did a lot of accompanying, as I do, and I agreed with his comment that accompanying is "indeed an art and takes a lifetime to learn" ... I could relate as well to his experience of being in a class or choir and having "a score placed in front of me ... expected to play it right away and in a way that helped rather than hindered the singers." Yep, that's accompanying!

Keith lives in England, near Liverpool, and had a career there as a civil servant. Throughout those years he got together with other employees who shared an interest in music, often performing with them. I loved this idea and wish it was easier for me to locate other musicians locally to perform with.

England evidently has a system of exams and tests to earn different certifications as a piano teacher. Jacobsen works hard to pass these and encounters a difficulty that I often noted during my years of piano "contest" in my youth: "The adjudication of both of the competitions I had entered had been marred by subjectivity and lack of clear criteria. It is fine to award cups to those who win races by crossing a line ahead of others, but hardly to those who for obscure reasons find favour with at best unsympathetic and at worst unqualified adjudicators." Amen, brother -- and the same thing happens with professors grading essays in college, 4-H judges at the fair, etc.

As a piano teacher, Jacobsen noted "the curse of self-consciousness and self-criticism which afflicts so may adult pianists." I notice this a lot with my adult student! She is so hard on herself and feels the need to stop and comment with each wrong note. Kids just don't do this.

Keith writes movingly of the therapy that music has been to him in life: "For me, music could never be just a hobby. It has been a lifelong search for a light which was missing from childhood. It was both a means to confront the darkness and to avoid being overwhelmed by it. Emotional release, a need to reach out and be understood, a means of finding and expressing meaning in a world so often without it -- music and its expression through the medium of the piano has been all those things for me. I do not like to think what paths my life would have taken without it."

I am glad to have "met" Keith through his book.

How to explain how exquisite and heartrending and beautifully personal this memoir is. 🎵

My family has always had a piano. Through generations, even when dragging your piano to Kansas in a wagon was a ridiculous idea. Even when purchasing a piano meant more than the family made in a month. We have always been surrounded by music. My mom was the true musician - and the piano was her therapy. We knew coming home from school what mood my mom was in, based on her piano choices. If we could hear the loud exclamations of 'The Entertainer' as we stepped off the bus, it was going to be a great afternoon! If the piano was moaning with quiet pensive hymns, we creaked open the screen door and crept up the stairs.

Jacobsen's stories and memories are considerably darker in tone than my own, but nonetheless resonant. He shares of his family background and youth with a frankness that is refreshing, that only a musician can truly impart.

This memoir, in fact, reads like a thoughtful album. Like a well-written song. And if one plays the piano, the notes and lyrics are here hidden just under the surface of Jacobsen's writing.

I learned to play the piano from my mom. Though I switched to flute at a young age, the beauty of music has always stayed close to my heart, triumphant and sorrowful in the same breath. This book reminds me who I am, even as I'm experiencing the life of a stranger.

Masterfully written, Keith Jacobsen. Thank you for sharing this book with the world.

"A piano does not do anything apart from what your fingers, hands and arms tell it to do. Even then it keeps no memory of what you have done for next time. It is not difficult to make a noise from the piano, but it is hard work getting anything worthwhile out of it. It is seriously old fashioned."

"Music is not and can never be distinct from real life."