Some notes on phrasing and lyricism

Phrasing:

Big sense of lyricism

Big line, big mountain

What does it sound like?

It sounds connected. It sounds like one line. It has flow to it. It sounds like the most beautiful thing soaring in the clouds. 

One thing I like to think of for lyricism and phrasing for both brass playing and singing is, I think of a soaring line, or like a big mountain, like the hills of the countryside.

The notes are strung together by your sense of lyricism. In that way, your sense of lyricism is unifying. It transforms the individual notes into one unified idea, one beautiful phrase, that can move audiences.

It’s like a curve

It’s kind of like you’re sending a ball on a trajectory

Base your playing and your legato exercises on that big sense of lyricism

One technical element that helps with phrasing is to think:

In the manner in which you are exhaling, you are letting out a constant river of air, which lightly has the tongue skipping on it, like a flat skipping rock on the water

Air is one of the foundations of lyricism

Some of my favorite examples of people performing with lyricism are Jacqueline Du Pre, Mstislav Rostropovich, Øystein Baadsvik, Patrick Sheridan, Bud Herseth, Tom Hooten, James Markey, and many others.

How To Be A Good Musician – Looking At It At A Different Level

Practice

Acting professional – people have to like you if you want work

Be early

Don’t miss notes

Play it right the first sight-reading, in every way, including playing musically and including playing every note, dynamic, and articulation on the page

Always listen to where the conductor is starting

Remember where you started so that when you have to start there again, you do

Always be ready and start WHEN the conductor starts

Get along with your ensemble

Have and demonstrate good time

Have a good ear for intonation

Have a good ear for hearing and being able to recreate(play) tones and melodies (and harmonies even)

Be able to improvise good-sounding things

Compose and arrange

Have a good ear for blend, balance, orchestration, timbre, etc.

Musical ensemble with everyone else – be able to play together (morph) WITH the other players WELL

Being able to lead (for instance if you’re playing first on a chorale)

Be able to conduct well

“Just pick up on what they’re doing musically and follow what they’re doing”

General: be able to read what other people are doing musically

Understanding the emotions of the other players while playing – by watching, listening, sensing what does or doesn’t radiate off of them

Clear communication between members of the group

Understanding each other as people: so you understand how to get along with each other: understanding how each person acts and feels in certain situations, understanding how I-T-T-T-FL-BL (Idea – Timing – Tact – Tone – Facial Language – Body Language: the idea you communicate, the time at which you express it, the language you use to express this idea, the tone you use to say these words, and your facial language and your body language) affects their emotions, understanding what kind of buttons not to push

Strictly brass quintet:

You want to be an impressive brass quintet? You’d better have the capacity to play LOUD, intense, and brassy EVERY TIME you see a Forte or Fortissimo (as appropriate).

You’d better have the ability to play with intensity described even at piano when appropriate (such as the Mouret Rondeau).

Any chamber music:

You’d better also have the ability to play as delicately and smoothly as a string quartet on legato piano things

You’d better have the ability to play as sensitively as a string quartet or voice on anything legato.

IMPORTANT: All 5 of you had better be feeling the music in your heart, body, and soul completely, and with that, you’d better also be connected in one, like you all have one heart and you are all feeling the exact same emotions at any given time, but at the same time, it’s like you’re creating this beautiful counterpoint of feelings and musical lines coming from each of your individual hearts whenever this is applicable.

Music: being able to communicate the ideas that you want to communicate

What I said about Musician X:
Concept: not so much of “knowing a piece”, but developing your musicianship to hear a piece and very quickly develop good musical ideas on it

Discussion of the phrase, listening for intonation, blend, time, phrasing, air, etc., wanting to shape the lines more, do more with the lines, shape the phrases more, play more musically

Higher level, what conductors like Barenboim, Giulini, and Dudamel do

Solo playing: you have something to say, and you SAY it.

Also exists when developing skills: skill which BRINGS about some insights you actually had not thought of before.

However it’s also (more often) you have a musical/sound idea in your head and what you want is to make that which is in your head (musical idea) a reality

Being a soloist: HAVE something to say: don’t hold back. Even if you’re not the greatest player (which you should be, don’t get me wrong), you HAVE something to say, you KNOW what you want to say, and you SAY it, without holding back.

Playing music: truthful “von haftiug”

(Play where the conductor asks you to start. Even if you think they mean a different place. (If they make a mistake, the ensemble will play in the wrong place, and the conductor will correct themselves. The conductor wants the ensemble to follow what they say. If they said the wrong place, that’s fine: at least the ensemble started where the conductor asked them to)).

(Concertos: follow the soloist more than the conductor)