As one might expect in a novel told from the first-person point of view of a sixteen-year-old cello prodigy, much of Midnight Hour Encores revolves around the world of music. How characters enjoy and respond to music serves as a key to personality, and it is through musical comparisons and experience that Sib views the world.

Musical allusion is common. A doorbell rings, and Sib hears a perfect F sharp; she offhandedly refers to listening to Ma (Yo-Yo Ma) playing the Bach suites; she hears Procul Harem and automatically calls it a "bad mockery" of Rachmaninoff and Buxtehude. Sib thinks musically. When she tries to prepare Taxi for her request to see her mother, she compares it to the use of the lyrical fragment: Music has taught me that people are suckers for foreshadowing.

Give them a little lyrical fragment in the woodwinds behind the theme...