Phrasing Lesson

The aim of this lesson is to show you how to take the notes of a scale and use them to create a memorable sounding solo. All of the phrasing examples in this lesson use the 1^st position of the E minor pentatonic scale. See below:

The art of phrasing is often overlooked. It is the ability to make a musical

statement from the "raw" notes of a scale.

It is often useful to think in terms of speech patterns which may get used in a conversation. For Example:

Click here to hear these phrases demonstrated over a backing track.

Try using the same "question" phrase more than once.

You could try stringing the phrases together in this fashion, for example:

Phrase One --- Phrase Two --- Phrase One --- Phrase Three

Click here to hear this demonstrated

Another phrasing "trick" is repetition. Three times is usually enough. Here is phrase 2 repeated 3 times with a "sub-repeat" on the 3rd time

Click here to hear this demonstrated.

A final "trick" is to re-use the rhythm of the previous phrase, but "populate" it with new notes (see below).

Click here to hear this demonstrated.

These are just a few of the ideas that regularly get used when improvising. There are many other tricks that can be employed, for example:

Take a phrase & play it backwards

Take the beginning of one phrase & join it on to the end of another

Play a phrase using just one note - this gets you thinking purely in terms of rhythm. Only when you have some interesting rhythms, do you allow yourself the "luxury" of more notes.

Use repetition with a phrase, but change it slightly each time (either the notes, the rhythm, or both) until it has changed completely then go back to the original phrase.

Exercise:

Using one of the phrases shown earlier as a basis, try playing an entire solo over the backing track. Click here to get the backing track.

Backing Track Chord Sequence:

|:Em7 D/E| % | % | % |

|Am7 G/A | % |Em7 D/E | % |

|B7#9 |Am7 G/A |Em7 D/E |B7b9 :|