Phrasing

Phrasing gives shape to music. Phrasing is what allows an improvisation to sound like composition. Rather than just flailing around and displaying technique, effective phrasing gives shape to music.

When we speak or write in English, there is a method for grouping together words in a phrase. If we are over-excited, we can lose our ability to communicate effectively by speaking too fast and running our words together. We do the same playing music. Just as effective speech should sound composed, effective musical improvisation should also sound composed.

Ex1 - Sing and Play

This exercise helps you to think melodically, rather than technically. It's good for people who want to get over playing a lot of notes, and want to play more interesting spontaneous lines. It can also help if you tend to play the same techniques and ideas across solos.

Approach

Improvise over a track. Then over the same track (without your solo), sing a melody without playing your instrument. Observe the difference between what you actually play and what was in your head when you did your free-form improvisation. The next step is to sing over the track and finger your instrument at the same time. This step helps to break the dependency between your instrument and your muscle-memory. It's OK if the actual pitches played do not match the pitches sung. The final step is to limit the phrasing on your instrument to what you sing. If you play a wind instrument, you will have to sing the phrases in your head, otherwise you can sing the phrases out loud.

Tips and Warnings

Make sure that you play what you sing. Don't start singing what you play. If this is a problem, go back to the step where you sing and finger the instrument without playing.

It may help to record yourself so you can listen objectively to your work.

Next Steps

Work on your listening skills to match the pitches you sing to the pitches you play.

Ex2 - Jingles and Melodies

This exercise is like "Sing and Play", but forces you to be more restrictive and simple in your lines. This can also be helpful to get ideas on variations of melodic lines, in case you are stuck on trying to figure out a good improvisation line to sing. It can also help if you tend to fall into "singing what you play", rather than "playing what you sing".

Approach

This is identical to the "Sing and Play" exercise, except you are using established melodies, rather than making one up on the spot.

Ex3 - Thematic Approach

This exercise allows you to take a simple idea and embellish it though the solo. This allows you to create solos that consist of cohesive phrases, developing an idea over time.

Approach

The hardest part of this exercise is to avoid an over-complex theme. An example of a simple theme might be three eighth-notes on the same note, followed by an eighth note on a different note. Phrases lasting more than a couple beats may restrict your ability to tie ideas together.

Now that you have your idea, play with it over a track. Don't be afraid to use a lot of space. Apply different pitches and 2-10 elements to your theme. Add space where you think it makes sense. For example, you might play your theme once, then after a rest do it twice or more, either changing pitch/2-10 or not. You can also weave in spontaneous lines, and return to your theme.

Tips and Warnings

Try incorporating rests as part of your thematic idea. For example, your theme could be a sixteenth note, followed by two sixteenth notes of rest, followed by a sixteenth note and a quarter note. You can also incorporate other 2-10 elements as part of your thematic idea. For example, your theme could be three eighth notes, with a heavy accent on the third eighth note.

Next Steps

Pay attention to songs you play and hear. Learn to pick out themes and adopt them. This can add a fresh element to a song, while retaining a central theme or idea.

Ex4 - Over and Under

This exercise is similar to the thematic approach. It is a variation to help you to add and resolve tension in your solos, rather than playing everything safe. This is really easy if you play a string instrument, since patterns repeat across the neck. This may apply to wind instruments in some form.

Approach

The idea is to think of notes in the theme as targets. There are other notes on either side of each target note. For example, if my target notes are C, E, and G, I have three notes above this pattern - C#, F, and G#. I also have three notes below this pattern - B, Eb, and Gb. This allows me to derive nine notes from three. The notes C, E, and G yield the notes B, C, C#, Eb, E, F, Gb, G, and G#. These nine notes are outside of conventional music theory. The reason this works, however, is because a pattern repeated in a pattern will sound right.

Playing the nine notes in ascending in order as I previously listed probably won't sound right, unless I have yet another target note after the G#. One possible "pattern of patterns" would be to play the three-note phrase over, under, and on the target notes. The sequence here for targets C, E, G would be C#, F, G# (over), B, Eb, Gb (under), C, E, G (on-target). Another pattern would be under, over, and on. The sequence for C, E, G would be B, Eb, Gb (under), C#, F, G# (over), C, E, G (on-target). These pattern work, because when you follow "wrong" notes with "right" notes, it makes the "right" notes sound more right. This is because the tension created by "wrong" notes are released with the "right" notes. Transitioning from a "right" note to another "right" note might sound ordinary, but transitioning from a "wrong" note to a "right" note might give the listener a big relief.

It is also possible to invert the "pattern within a pattern". The previous examples had an inner pattern of C-E-G applied to an outer pattern of "over-under-on" or "under-over-on". We can invert the pattern by making the inner pattern "over-under-on", and making the outer pattern C-E-G. The sequence for this pattern is C#, B, C (target C), F, Eb, E (target E), G#, Gb, G (Target G). Changing the inner pattern to "under-over-on" gives B, C#, C (target C), Eb, F, E (target E), Eb, F, E (target E).

Starting with a pattern of three notes yields (at least) four patterns of nine notes.

Next Steps

The above examples applied the concept of "over/under" to notes. Try applying the concept to other 2-10 elements such as dynamics, tone, and articulation.