Toccata in G Major

Welcome back to Tea with Liya! Today, I'm playing a classical song by J.S. Bach called "Toccata in G Major." A toccata is defined as a piece of music that is written to demonstrate the dexterity of the performer's hands. It's usually written for the piano, so I suppose this was the perfect song for me to play. It also served as a reminder of how composers sometimes make their songs hard to play! Or perhaps these difficult lines actually help musicians develop their skills. I hope you like listening to it!


Listen to the song here
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You may have noticed that this song has a lot of lines going in different directions. They're called "lines," maybe because that's what they look like when they're written down - a line of notes on a staff. It's used to refer to a melody that is being played. One thing I didn't understand for a while is that I could play more than two of them at a time, even though I only have two hands.

Maybe I have four hands and you don't know it. Actually, I've already proven that wrong because I published a YouTube video of myself playing the song. It's clear I used two, but you can look at it if you want to know for sure.

You might imagine that this requires some coordination in order to play two melodies with the same hand, and sometimes you even have to switch them between hands (after all, there's a limit to how far your hand can reach, and it's usually less than what you're hoping for).

But that's exactly why songs like this one were written.

If you looked up the word "toccata," you'd find that it describes a song that features sections with fast movements of the fingers. These songs would require an agile "touch" (hence the name, toccata) in order to be played. If you've never played a piano, you might feel like that describes most of the songs you've heard. However, some songs are written to require different skills than others.

For example, in this one, you have to coordinate playing multiple lines of notes, while making sure you can play them at the correct speed. In another one, you might have to bounce your hand across the piano. I can think of a few songs where the performer has to stretch their hands in order to play large chords. (There's always a limit to how far your hand can reach.)

In fact, some songs are written as Etudes (studies), because they're supposed to help the performer study a certain skill. These often have a repeating pattern that is used as the main focus of the song.

The good thing about the titles of these songs is that they tell musicians something about what type of song it is, and therefore what skills they might need to play the song... although sometimes you never know. I'm thinking about some Sonatas in A Major that have the same title and are clearly different...

It might appear that composers are trying to make songs harder to play, or to listen to, but they're actually helping us to develop different musical techniques with their varied styles of music.

That sounds like something I'd want to fill my teacup with!
~Liya