Phrasing, Phrasing, Phrasing ...

[jpfeifer]

I've been taking a close look at my own playing lately, always looking for areas to improve. One area that I'm really focusing on right now is phrasing, and coming up with ways to improve it.

To emphasize the importance of phrasing, Scott Henderson uses a funny quote in his instructional DVD to make his point he says: "I'd rather hear Albert King drop his guitar on the floor once, than to hear an endless solo of continuous eighth notes from a Jazz player"

For me, the best exercise for phrasing is to practice soloing over blues progressions. Focus on making some kind of opening statement over the 1 chord. Next, try to find a way to answer it or repeat it on the IV chord and so on. If one idea starts to take hold and you feel the need to repeat it again, all the better. The key thing is that you're trying to focus on making yourself react to what you have just played, almost as if you're having a conversation in some way. Listen to yourself and react to your own lines as you play. If you're playing a continuous string of notes, then you're just rambling, and your audience will eventually tune out.

The other thing you can do to practice phrasing (or making yourself focus on it), is to limit your note choices to only a few notes for your whole solo. Practice taking those 3 or 4 notes and making little rhythmic statements with them. You would be suprised at what you can come up with when you force yourself to be more creative with limited note choices and focus on the phrasing.

When you work on things like this, you start to have a more interesting aspect to your solos. Your solos will tend to build better and become more musical overall.

If any of you have other ideas for working on phrasing please pass them along.

-- Jim

[bigG]

Very good, jpf! I'd also suggest "building" your phrasing from slower, shorter stuff at the beginning of a solo, at the nut end of the neck, and moving towards the higher frets, faster phrases and end w bends and combos (double stops and triads). In other words, save the showier stuff for last - or, build up to it, climax, and end w some slower short phrases that bring the lead back down and "cap" it.

[Robert****]

Sing the notes as you play them - makes phrases more musical!

[pes_laul]

I've never really payed attention to my phrasing (I really prolly should) but I actually have fairy good phrasing which I should probably thank choir for

[R_of_G]

this is the same advice i offer any time the phrasing question comes up. listen to soloists who play instruments other than guitar and pay close attention to their phrasing. i've learned more about phrasing from thelonious monk and miles davis than i have from every guitar player ever.

[jpfeifer]

There are certain players who have really interesting phrasing. I think that their solos are interesting because of the way they put their phrases together.

It kind of goes with that saying, it's not what you play, it's how you play it.

Here are the guys that come to mind when I think of interesting phrasing:
- B.B. King
He plays very vocally, almost like he is singing through his guitar.
- David Gilmour
His solos sound so cool because the lines make sense. He follows one line with somehting that goes with it, from beginning to end. Even though he isn't a flashy, fast player, it demonstrates you that you don't have to have incredible speed to use good phrasing and make intersting solos.
- Stevie Ray
I really like to hear how he plays with the rhythm for certain licks to make them stand out.
- Larry Carlton
For the same reasons I like BB King. It sounds like he is signing through the guitar. He also tends to start his solos very simple, then build them as he goes.
- Mark Knopfler
Maybe it's because he plays with his fingers, but his lines are always very ear catching. Just listen to the various rhythmic figures he uses in some of the lines he plays.
- Jeff Beck
I think that he is probably the most advanced player I've ever heard when it comes to this. He does very weird things with time, pauses where you don't expect, etc, but it all comes out sounding very musical.

-- Jim

[R_of_G]

more than any other guitar player, bill frisell has taught me a great deal about phrasing.

i had part of this interview quoted in my signature previously. here is the whole thing, which i think illustrates exactly what frisell's playing has taught me...

---------------
LP: Your approach to melody seems unique in that you break it down piece by piece until you are dissecting the elements of sound within the context of melody. Can you explain that process?

BF: When I first started getting into jazz, I studied what was going on with the music theoretically and would look at things more in a mathematical way. I would look at the chords and learn what the chord tones were, what the scales were. But somewhere along the way, I tried to understand all the inner workings of the melody. If the melody isn't there, then it really doesn't mean anything. It's also where it gets harder to explain. With every song, I'm trying to internalize the melody so strong that that's the backbone for everything that I am playing no matter how abstract it becomes. Sometimes I'll just play the melody over and over again and try to vary it slightly. It's really coming from that, like trying to make the melody the thing that's generating all the variations rather than some kind of theoretical mathematical approach.

LP: Could you explain what you mean by internalizing the melody?

BF: It's playing and hearing the melody and not playing anything but the melody until it starts going on inside your body, even without thinking about it. But the older I get, the longer it seems to take to learn new things and get it to the point where it's really deep down in there somehow.
-----------------------------

the full interview can be found here: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=33077

now, if anybody would like an example of just what frisell means, here he is playing a song with a melody i would imagine most of us know...

i have posted this previously in the now playing thread, but i think it works here to exemplify just what i mean about frisell, plus, who couldn't use 9 minutes of sweet telecaster tone?

[P.J.]

[QUOTE=R_of_G]more than any other guitar player, bill frisell has taught me a great deal about phrasing.

Bill is wonderful. His earlier, vol. pedal stuff was especially important to me as an influence.

=-) PJ

[rugbynyc]

this is the same advice i offer any time the phrasing question comes up. listen to soloists who play instruments other than guitar and pay close attention to their phrasing. i've learned more about phrasing from thelonious monk and miles davis than i have from every guitar player ever.

I recall reading an accomplished player say that the best instrument other then guitar for a guitarist to listen to is Saxophone. Also, a great way to learn how to solo is to attempt to transcribe and play saxophone solos on guitar.

I don't recall who said it though.

[Jimi75]

I think that phrasing is the mirror of your musical soul. It develops with the time. There is times where you play more notes and times where you play less notes and maybe more melodical. It seems that there is a common understanding of what good phrasing is. I always admired Robben Ford, Peter Green & Eric Johnson for their phrasing. A really exciting CD is Gary Moore's "Blues for Greeny". His phrasing is so good on that one that you can't tell pentatonic from normal scale runs. He leaves a lot of space in between lines and everything fit perfectly.

[jpfeifer]

I had some time to kill on a flight this morning for work. I was doing some concentrated listening to two guys quite a bit and admired their phrasing. One was Robben Ford and the other was Derek Trucks. I was noticing alot of cool things with both of these guys.

With Robben Ford it was eye opening how good his phrasing is. He leaves a lot of space between his ideas, and he tends to answer his ealier lines with other lines that tie them together, repeating things in another octave, etc.

With Derek Trucks I could easily see the influence of Indian music in his lines. You can hear all kinds of sitar-like phrasing in the way that he moves his notes around.

-- Jim

[Jimi75]

With Robben Ford it was eye opening how good his phrasing is. He leaves a lot of space between his ideas, and he tends to answer his ealier lines with other lines that tie them together, repeating things in another octave, etc.

He's got some sensational books and dvds. Especially the books with CD are a great thing. I worked myself through one of them and it was a major step I took in my phrasing.

[R_of_G]

I recall reading an accomplished player say that the best instrument other then guitar for a guitarist to listen to is Saxophone. Also, a great way to learn how to solo is to attempt to transcribe and play saxophone solos on guitar.

I don't recall who said it though.

i'm not sure who specifically said that either, but i do know that sonny sharrock (another huge influence on me) often said he played the guitar like he would a saxophone. sharrock had always wanted to play sax, but asthma prevented him from doing so.