Guitar Phrasing

Brad Finley (www.MyGuitarWorkshop.com)

   As we do when we speak, each guitar player puts his or her own personal touch into playing their instrument. This personal style is called guitar phrasing and it is very much like speech patterns, in that we choose how to interpret a song, add or detract our own color in guitar chord phrasing, tease or race a rhythm to make a statement. Whether we are picking or strumming or even not playing while waiting-out a dramatic silence, if we are staying in the ‘grove’, timing of the piece, we can still make the piece our own from understanding guitar phrasing lessons and applying them liberally.

 Though it is most often spoken about with jazz guitar phrasing, guitar phrasing really doesn’t speak to just one style. Basically, as

we color our language with inflections of speech, so we can when we play. A less technical skill (not a technical skill at all) then strumming or picking, a good guitar phrasing lesson focuses more on bringing the player’s personality out then teaching anything truly specific. This is really a ‘feel’ thing and though that term is quite esoteric, there really isn’t much more to guitar phrasing then feel. As we would ‘phrase’ something we say as a question, when we could probably just as easily make it a statement, we approach a particular song, or part of a song, with maybe aggression or a laid-back attitude, which brings our personality into it. Yes, jazz guitar phrasing is full of these changes in inflection (a lot of jazz playing is how you play a particular standard not that you are playing that standard) but a player can put his or her individual personality into any genre of music they play.

     The above can be applied to picking, ‘lead’ playing but it is also true of guitar chord phrasing (in fact, maybe even more so). This is where a player takes a certain chord progression and really leaves a mark, his or her own personal statement on a passage in such a way that it is theirs as they are playing it. It takes concentration and technique, but more importantly an ability to let go and take chances. Sometimes the less adept player can make some really beautiful stuff come out of his or her guitar chord phrasing that no guitar phrasing lesson could have ever taught them. The more in tune a player is with who they are or who they might aspire to be, the richer their guitar phrasing becomes…in fact, maybe this should be the objective to any good guitar phrasing lesson: be yourself.

     There really is no way to say what and what not to do when attempting guitar phrasing. You really can’t go wrong if you stay to the music. In fact, all those little phrases you see written on the first page of a manuscript, “play lively” or other types of clues is the way the author of the piece is trying to indicate what phrasing they imagined when they wrote the piece (not that you even have to pay attention to that!) There will be certain songs that bring forth a rage of aggression that you can hardly wrestle and your guitar phrasing will show this, or on one certain day a passage will hit you in a certain specific way it never has before (and never will again) and you open up your emotions to bring forth a language you never even knew you knew! As mentioned earlier, guitar phrasing lessons will teach you to be open to all these varied and rich colors of your playing and show you that nothing you do is wrong if it comes from your feelings and your own individual language.