Phrasing

The way a player shapes a line through timing, dynamics, articulation and space, so that it sounds like a spoken sentence.

Phrasing is what makes the difference between correctly played notes and music, and it cannot be notated fully: it lives in how long notes are held, where the line breathes and how a phrase is answered by silence. Guitarists learn phrasing by listening to singers and horn players, whose phrasing is shaped by breath, and by deliberately leaving gaps. A player with good phrasing sounds expressive on three notes; a player without it sounds mechanical on thirty.

Example: A solo in which short phrases are separated by clear pauses, each answering the last, is well phrased.

Phrasing

See also