Nocturne No. 5 in B-flat major, H. 37, by John Field
Every score here is public domain, free to read, print and keep. Open it in the browser and it plays, at whatever tempo you can read it.
Get the practice plan for Nocturne No. 5 in B-flat major, H. 37
Here it is. Check your inbox for day 1.
- Hear it through at Slow (56 bpm). Open it in the reader, choose Slow, and follow the page with your eyes without playing. As it plays, count 4 big beats to the bar.
- Learn the right hand of bars 1 to 8 on its own, in B♭ major. Say the note names out loud the first time through, then play it three times without stopping.
- Find the chords under it: B♭6, B♭dim7, B♭ and Cdim7. Play each one as a block in your left hand and say its name, so you know what the harmony is before the left hand has to move.
- Learn the left hand of the same bars on its own. Keep it quiet and even: it is the floor the tune stands on.
- Put hands together at Slow, 56 bpm. Bars 1 to 8 only. Stop after every wrong note and play that bar again before moving on.
- Move up to Steady (84 bpm) once Slow feels easy three times in a row. Then learn the next 8 bars the same way: right hand, left hand, together.
- Play the whole piece (about 2 minutes) from the start, at whatever speed keeps it going. A steady run with a few slips beats a fast one that stops.
About this piece
John Field, an Irish pianist, invented the nocturne as a piano form, and Chopin's nocturnes grew from his. This fifth nocturne is a calm song in 12/8 over a softly rippling left hand.
How to play it
The left hand's wide broken chords are the bed of sound, so keep them even and quiet and let the right-hand tune float above.
Reading it, and printing it
The score opens in Artform's reader, which shows the music as engraved notation and plays it back so you can hear the line before you try it. You can slow the tempo down, loop a passage that is not working yet, and print the page when you would rather have paper on the stand.
The file itself is MusicXML, which MuseScore, Sibelius, Finale and Dorico all open, so the notes are yours to keep whatever you read them in.
Edition: Mutopia Project #2137, licensed CC BY-SA. Converted to MusicXML by Artform and checked note for note against the original.
More free John Field sheet music
Who John Field was
Irish pianist who invented the nocturne, a full generation before Chopin took the form and made it his own; Chopin knew exactly where it came from and said so. As a boy he was employed by Clementi to demonstrate pianos to customers in a London showroom, which is a strange apprenticeship for a composer and an excellent one for a pianist. He settled in Russia, taught there for decades, and stayed so long that Glinka claimed him as a Russian influence. He drank heavily and died in Moscow.
Learn the music behind it
Reading a piece and understanding it are different skills. If you want the harmony under this one, the chord trainer teaches chords the way songs use them, and the scale pages cover the fingering for every key, including B♭ major.