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Blues, Jazz, and Rock Guitar Phrasing
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If you’ve ever tried to learn to play an instrument before, you are familiar with the idea of blues, jazz, and rock guitar phrasing, even if you’ve never heard of the term before. There comes a time for everyone when you may play a piece you’ve been practicing perfectly, but your instructor will tell you to put a little heart into it, to make that piece of music your own. Your instructor is referring to guitar phrasing: the concept of making a song your own by emphasizing certain notes over others. This technique is best known in the genres of jazz and blues that allow for a more free form interpretation of the songs and notes you are playing, but phrasing can be seen in rock and even heavy metal. Let’s take a look at how phrasing is used in the dominant forms of music today.
When we listen to our favorite music, whether it be a smoking guitar solo from B.B. King or a lighting fast metal solo from Dave Mustaine, we know, within milliseconds, who is playing guitar. The rhythm section could be provided by a 100-piece orchestra, and it wouldn’t matter. That’s because the world’s best guitarists have their own unique phrasing. In blues, much like jazz, improvisation is not only encouraged, it is an expected part of every song. Phrasing is why you can own ten different versions of the same song, and have none of them sound anything alike, because the way one blues guitarist plays it is completely different than the way another would play it. In general, phrasing in blues is more contained than it is in jazz, which can fly off in any direction at any given time for long stretches, but it is present nonetheless.
In rock, phrasing is used to help develop a guitarists own unique sound. Often times, as guitar players learn their craft, they will start by learning sheet music note for note so that they can become good technical players, but once that technical proficiency is reached, a guitarist can then begin to make a piece of music his own by riffing and phrasing a string of notes to his or her liking. Technically, blues, jazz, and rock guitar phrasing is different than all-out improvisation because, by definition, improvisation adds extra notes that aren’t “normally” in the song, while phrasing is more geared to how the notes that are there are played, but some famous guitarists like Steve Vai will break up existing notes into smaller pieces and play each new note in a unique way without losing the melody. This inventive, and difficult, style of playing is considered phrasing, as well.
Even if you don’t play, we’ve all heard someone mention that a soloist has made a piece of music “their own” or that they “put their heart into that song” by performing it in a unique way. The next time you hear someone say this, you’ll know that they are likely referring to a combination of blues, jazz, and rock guitar phrasing and improvisation. Just like speech patterns, blues, jazz, and rock guitar phrasing can take any piece of music and make it your own.
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