Nocturne in A flat Major

Welcome back to Tea with Liya! Today, I'm playing a classical song called "Nocturne," composed by Samuel Barber. If this is your first time listening to the song, it probably won't sound much like a nocturne to you. Perhaps there's a thunderstorm in the middle of the night... who knows? I think that this song has a lot of contrast in it that would be worth noticing. I hope you like listening to it!


Listen to the song here
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Does anyone remember why I called this post "Nocturne in A flat Major?" The song isn't in A flat major for most of the time. In fact, it can't even stay in one register of the piano. Sometimes it's all the way up at the top, and other times you might have both hands on different sides.

If you remember one of my previous posts, you might know that some songs this year are ones I haven't really liked until I started playing them. This year, one of the things I've been trying to do is to bring out the contrast in songs, instead of just playing the notes that were written on the page. This would have been a good song for practicing that.

Alright, here is a 5-line staff, just for you. I think you've heard enough about the 6-line staff by now. But wait a minute... there's two notes on top of each other. And that bass clef is going through the bar line...

It seems that the different parts of the song are written to tell a story. Some are quieter and some are louder than others. There's also the key changes which tell the listener that another section is starting. It also has a buildup to the climax in the middle, which later gets resolved.

One way I remembered how to play the song is to think about what the sections were supposed to represent. Perhaps you're looking out at a sunset when the song starts, and then you start seeing more clouds as the sky gets darker. Eventually, it's started to rain, and before long your sleep is interrupted by a flash of lightning.

However, the thunder and lightning don't last long, and eventually all you're hearing is the drops of rain. Before long, the sky is looking similar to how it did at the beginning of the song. Maybe the sun's rising when it finishes.

You didn't think that a composer could say all of that with a song, did you? That's why, when I read about composing music, I hear things about adding in different sections, and creating climaxes that are resolved. A song can say a lot more than just the notes on the page. Once you understand that, you might actually start to like the song.

Maybe you've asked yourself why tea needs milk and sugar or why toasted bread needs butter. It's actually quite simple... it brings out the flavor. If a song sounded the same all the way through, or if all the pieces of food on your plate tasted the same, you wouldn't like it. That's the reason why songs have contrasting sections in them. They wouldn't tell stories if they didn't.

Keep filling your teacup with music!

~Liya