Music Question

[RonJ]

I would like to understand phrasing. A written definition is of no help to me, I've read several. Can you provide an understandable definition? Maybe with some good examples?

 

[Rustyt1953]

Not meaning to over simplify. As you have probably read, a melody line is like a sentence. Phrasing is punctuation.

Take "twinkle, twinkle." Written in four beats per measure, the first 7 notes (twinkle, twinkle little star) are a "motive", the first part of the sentence. If you just play those notes, it doesn't feel finished does it?
When you add, "how I wonder what you are", you have completed the "phrase", or finished the sentence. You can now repeat the phrase or change the notes to make a new sentence.

If you go to you tube and search "musical phrasing", there are lots of examples.

PS "phrasing" can also refer to how you chose to interpret a group of notes by injecting feel and dynamics into them.

Hopefully someone will come along, wiser than me, to help you.

 

[RonJ]

Thanks Rusty. At this point over simplification is not likely.
You have provided some good insights and a good start.

 

[shouldazagged]

To hear how to phrase a ballad or jazz number, listen to masters of the art.

Listen to how Rosemary Clooney sings a song in her wonderful "Girl Singer" album from later in her career. Listen to Sinatra's classic "In The Wee Small Hours" album. Listen to Mel Torme working with George Shearing. Listen to Keith Jarrett, or Gary Burton, or the Modern Jazz Quartet. Get a feel for how they shape the songs and give them the feeling Rusty mentioned. It's about pauses, how long notes are held, how loud and soft, and how long a lyric line flows.

Classical phrasing is similar or different depending on the period from which it comes; but you might get a feel for it by listening to Ithak Perlman play Bruch's "Scottish Fantasy" or "Kol Nidrei".

This may be no help at all, but you said written definitions haven't helped much.

And no, I am not wiser than Rusty, I just come at it from a different angle.

 

[captorquewrench]

This is how i start the concept with the little ones. It's a musical thought or sentence. You can hsve subphrases. Like with your stories, we can hook the sentences together for longer stories, as short as a picture book, or a long chapter book.

It follows our linguistic idiom. This is why even the instrumental music of different nationalities and eras within sound the way they do.

Your harmonic progression and cadence points snd types will help shape the phrase and inflection via dynamics, vibrato, articulation, etc.

 

[RonJ]

Cumulative info, a little at a time! Works for me. Thanks!

 

[Rustyt1953]

Just to muddy the waters, my favorite part of phrasing is using and listening for "ghost notes." Not to be confused with "rests", ghost notes are conspicuous by their absence. Players will purposely omit a note in a passage to give it a different feel.

Mostly we do it to see who's paying attention. I'd bet I couldn't slip one past Mike.

 

[Marshwheeling]

Listen to Dylan's original recordings of All Along the Watchtower or Highway 61 Revisited compared to how he sings them now in concert. They are almost unrecognizable.

The difference is largely phrasing.

 

[shouldazagged]

This is how i start the concept with the little ones. It's a musical thought or sentence. You can hsve subphrases. Like with your stories, we can hook the sentences together for longer stories, as short as a picture book, or a long chapter book.

It follows our linguistic idiom. This is why even the instrumental music of different nationalities and eras within sound the way they do.

Your harmonic progression and cadence points snd types will help shape the phrase and inflection via dynamics, vibrato, articulation, etc.

I knew a professional would be along to make sense of it.