The Fastest Way to Learn a Musical Instrument Guaranteed

You can’t get what you want, ’til you know what you want.  Joe Jackson had a hit song based on this truth, and nowhere is this idea more important than in phrasing music.
Your phrasing is determined by your ideas about the meaning of the music.  The meaning then determines how you should phrase specific sections.
All of [...]

Musicians face a big challenge in how to phrase music that has a lot of repetition in it.  The truth is, most musical compositions have a lot of repetition.  Melodies are built on repeated fragments, different phrases sound alike, and entire sections are often repeated.
When something reappears in your music over and over again, you have [...]

Most musicians focus on their technique when they want to improve their musical phrasing.  They try to figure out how to manipulate their instruments to create the right sound for each phrase.
This approach works, but it is very time-consuming and doesn’t allow musicians to be creative. 
There’s another way to go about creating expressive phrases:
Instead of [...]

One of the best ways to have convincing phrasing in your music is to create a story line that goes through the piece.  The drama of your narrative will be played out in your performance and help you establish the right feeling for each section.
The highs and lows of the story will be translated into changing dynamics, alterations [...]

How to phrase music is a big topic.  Deciding which notes to emphasize makes your interpretation of a piece different from the way other musicians play.
Here’s a fun way to think about choosing which notes should stand out in your performance.
Let’s consider this sentence:
“I didn’t say you could take my money.”
Read each of these versions [...]