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...