Customer Reviews

Notes from a Minor Key: A Memoir of Music, Love, and Healing

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What an exceptional piece of writing! I've never read anything by a man or a woman that is as raw and honest. Through the telling of a beautiful love story, Dawn Bailiff becomes vulnerable to the the reader in a most powerful way.

She came into this world with incredible intelligence and talent. While she continuously struggles with the effects of multiple sclerosis and has suffered unimaginable losses, she continues to share her greatness through the gift of this book.

What an incredible writer Dawn is, and what a heroic story she shares with us.
I was awed by her word-ability -- Dawn is truly capable of giving the reader an intimate portrait that has us experience, along with her, the triumphs and tragedies that she so adeptly relates with her two-character style of writing.

She is a genius of a person. A gifted musician and now an insightful story teller. She expresses her superior intelligence in such a down to earth way that she makes it easy for us to like her and want to be her friend. I was moved emotionally as the story unfolded. In fact, knowing her story in advance of my reading, I found myself reluctant to read on, knowing what was to come. I'd put the book away for days eventually braving her words.
I couldn't believe the amount of pain she somehow tolerates, yet transmutes through her spiritual exercises. Dawn shows us the way a true believer struggles with overwhelming situations and actually achieves victories over adversities.

Worthy of being put on the Oprah Show, and let the world get to know a Giant of Spiritual Power, one who shows us the way. She is truly a 21st Century woman.God Bless Her.

This is a facinating story of a remarkable woman who courageously survives in spite of contacting MS and suffering other personal tragedies. This is a passionate love story of a gifted artist that is deeply moving and invites the reader inside her thoughts. A page turner.

Notes from a Minor Key: A Memoir of Music, Love, and HealingOne of the best books I have read. It is a compelling memoir of triumph over potentially life crushing disasters. Dawn Bailiff, once one of the world's most talented pianists, elegantly and interestingly recounts her struggles to achieve greatness as a musician at a young age, her loving and intellectually stimulating relationship with her composer husband, and her ability to overcome debilitating diseases and the tragic deaths of all who she held dear. The memoir is effectively written alternately in the first person of Dawn and her husband. This book is a must read for all who appreciate great music, incisive writing, a highly intellectual examination of life and spirituality, and heroic internal strength.

A few months ago, I put a review of _Notes From A Minor Key_, by Dawn Bailiff, up on Amazon. I see that my review has been taken down. Possibly, someone decided that the review didn't conform to Amazon's standards for writing reviews. Since the review consisted almost entirely of a long excerpt from the book, I suppose they were right.

So, let me try again.

_Notes From A Minor Key_ primarily tells the story of Dawn Bailiff's career as a concert pianist, and of how that career was cut short by multiple sclerosis. But it is much more than a simple, straightforward memoir. Ms. Bailiff shares her opinions and beliefs about many things. The story is divided into three sections (mind, body, and soul) reflecting Ms. Bailiff's belief that true healing must take place on all three of these levels.

The first part (mind) is a love story, and tells of the early stages of Ms. Bailiff's relationship with the man who would later become her husband. The chapters in this section alternate between Dawn's point of view and Paul's point of view. This is such an ambitious and difficult way of writing that most writers probably would never dare to even attempt it, but Ms. Bailiff pulls it off well.

The second part of the book (body) tells of Dawn's struggles to cope with the early stages of her disease, which was still undiagnosed at this point. Like the first part, it is told from alternating points of view between Dawn and Paul, and once again she handles the extremely difficult task of writing from Paul's perspective with great energy and imagination.

The final part of the book (soul) describes the challenges and tragedies that Dawn faced after learning that she had MS, and is told almost entirely from Dawn's point of view. (The reason for this will become obvious when you read the book.)

It would be remiss of me to close this review without mentioning the controversies that have sprung up around it. Ms. Bailiff changed the names of some of the characters in the story, in order to protect innocent people from embarrassment. Unfortunately, the book doesn't tell you that names have been changed. Also, she took some liberties with the story itself, altering a few details in order to simplify things. This has caused her to be subjected to some rather harsh criticism from various quarters. Perhaps it would have been best if she had changed all the names and published the book as a novel (which is essentially what Lauren Weisberger did with _The Devil Wears Prada_.) But, we cannot change the past. What's done is done.

Despite the problems, I still maintain that _Notes From A Minor Key_ is an inspiring story that will be enjoyed by anyone who knows how to appreciate good writing. You may not share Ms. Bailiff's enthusiasm for alternative medicine, or her admiration for Edgar Cayce, or her belief in psychic phenomena, but you cannot deny that this book contains some good writing. She is at her best when describing the toll that early-stage MS took on her piano playing career. (I'm tempted to include a brief quote here, but then Amazon might pull my review down again, so I'll just have to ask you to trust me on this. The book does contain some excellent writing.) Also, there are some "Inside Baseball" moments, and you can quite easily get an introduction to the history of classical music just by reading this book.

What else is there to say? Well, the proofreading is poor, and there are some misspelled words ("lead" instead of "led", "predominately" instead of "predominantly", "breath" instead of "breathe".) I strongly suspect that these are the fault of the publisher rather than the author.

Even with all of its flaws, this is a fine first book by a talented writer. Let's hope that it won't be her last.

Dawn Bailiff's title describes living with multiple sclerosis - but it's much more. It's also the story of a half-Jewish, half-Japanese girl who played with Leonard Bernstein when she was just 10, who was accepted into the Peabody Conservatory of Music at age 15, and whose music helped her struggle through MS diagnosis and symptoms. Bailiff is a composer, former world-class concert pianist, and here integrates her musical passion and experiences with powerful first-person insights on living with ms.