How important is Phrasing to guitar players?

Hi guys,
Just wondering what your thoughts were on this important topic. I think phrasing is extremely important and overlooked in guitar soloing. What are your thoughts?

I agree, many guitar players are phenominal lead players but they're ideas just go on and on. Thats why I think often times the most entertaining solos are from the 70s because they grew up on blues. Which every blues player knows, if you have bad phrasing you can't play the blues...good that is!

Phrasing is everything. I'm of the opinion that you can get away with playing more or less anything as long as you do it like you mean it!... :D

Phrasing can be overlooked, but there are also many melodic shredders - it sometimes just takes some effort to find the melody....

Ya gotta fit the playing style to the song or it just sticks out and sounds weird. Just subtly changing your strumming style can totally change a song.
Even just changing your amp settings or speaker cabinet makes a difference.

Phrasing is one of the main things if not the main thing that gives an artist their unique style in my opinion. There are many guitarists who have great technique, but it's the ones with great phrasing that you really remember.

I agree with all you guys. The phrase is the fundamental building block of any riff sequence or solo - one of the most important decisions you can make is what chords/notes NOT to play.

Ryan: Ditto

There's a time for go fast and a time for slow mo and they ain't always the same time.

Stephen

As a jazz player, almost half of what I do is phrasing - articulation, trying to sound like horn players, etc... And there's a specific style of phrasing that needs to be applied to swing music - you need to pick on the "and" of the beat, and slur (hammer or slide) onto the downbeat. There are books all over the place for this stuff for horn players, but very few for guitarists. So, I've resorted to using the horn books.

In fact, I'll be applying to music schools very soon, and a lot of them require a bebop head be played, just for the sole purpose of listening to phrasing.

wat are phrasing >_>

Phrasing is basically the way that you piece together your runs... adding character to notes by bending, sliding, hammer ons, pull offs... so forth. A good example of phrasing is to listen to blues musicians like Joe Bonamassa or Stevie Ray Vaughan... They tend to get the most character out of a short span of notes... Like most people say about BB King "he can put more emotion into a single note than anyone else can in one thousand notes"..... A good example of bad phrasing is anything that is balls to the wall shred... granted it has it's own place in music and it's just as spectacular to listen to... it's just a different kind of music... you could say that shred is just a different kind of phrasing... where other notes are used to phrase certain notes.... But whatever... Phrasing is a little different to everyone because everyone tends to have different styles.. It's similar to a guitar players "chops" chops are generally little tricks or riffs that a guitar player has........ Phrasing "chops" differently can make the riff or run sound completely different... bending a note here rather than there... sliding into a note instead of just going into it... trill a note bending a note rather than hammering to it or sliding to it... just little differences like that can change the sound of a lick... That's the basics of "phrasing" as I interpret it.

Lack of phrasing is the reason that I can't listen to Yngwie Malmsteen...

Normally phrasing comes into any argument that I get into with someone that says a guitarist that can sweep like Rusty Cooley or can do speed runs like Yngwie is the best guitarist out there... Speed does not equal greatness..... It just means you've mastered a single skill of the guitar... In baseball, a pitcher can throw a 100 mph fastball.... but if he doesn't have a change up or some other off speed pitch, or control over his fastball.... then he's not a very good pitcher at all.... When I think of the greatest guitar player ever... sure the names Steve Vai and Joe Satriani come into my mind... But even Stevie Ray Vaughan comes to mind before them... He could play fast licks AND phrase them at the same time... Steve Vai is probably the "best" guitar player alive right now... given the fact that no one has a better grasp on the instrument than him... That argument can go on forever and I won't get into it... but I think phrasing is what makes a guitar player a guitar player. Playing notes fast sounds mechanical... Playing the way that Stevie, Jimi, Clapton, BB, Buddy Guy, Albert King, Duane Allman, Joe Bonamassa, and a whole bunch of other bluesy musicians did... That takes just as much talent as playing a chromatic scale at a blazing speed..... Fast is nothing more than fast... When you learn to play slow AND still be able to wow a crowd...then you know you know how to phrase...

Master phrasing, I think, can be found in the playing of Jim Hall.

But I think complete mastery, for me at least, both tonally (through his hands, not through effects), compositionally (creativeness) and technically, goes to Bill Frisell.

Mark Knophler is my fav

I won't get into how important phrasing is. It's been very well covered in the above posts. To me Tone and Phrasing is of more value than technical wizardy or volume for that matter.

David Gilmour = Phrasing !!!

Phrasing and tone. Gilmore has always impressed me. Tone and attack are also part and parcel....There are so many sounds to explore.....with a little sustain....whoa......

S

Good point. Another way to look at it could be to actually look at the life of a note and analyse how each note starts 'lives' and ends. It could start by picking, tapping, hammered on to, pulled off on to etc. The middle of the note could be how it it bent or shaped by effects, or vibrato and the end is, well, how you choose to end the note.

Pick a solo, or a short excerpt from a solo and work out each note's life and how combinations of notes have different effects on the general music. Rather than just playing notes in any fashion sometimes its good to experiment with things like this. I'm sure I read an article in guitar world years ago about this. Hope it makes sense.