 |  PHRASINGOr, how the music goes. To phrase well is to shape the music well, first in small sections (phrases), then over larger divisions, then an entire movement, finally the complete work. I will confine myself here to the phrase; shaping larger parts of a movement, or complete works, is not in the realm of this discussion, though it is, of course, what "making music" is all about. Still, if an individual phrase is to be played beautifully, part of the beauty is how it fits the phrases around it. The whole is the sum of its parts, and more. On the other hand, there is no "technique" that I know of that tells you how to shape a Beethoven quartet; in this sense one's version of an entire work is exactly the sum of the individual phrases that comprise it. Individual phrases can be of different lengths, but they are by definition short. Folk songs almost always are made up of four measure phrases. Consider "The Red River Valley", a radiant folk song (American?): From this valley they say Let's talk about how to phrase this phrase. If you sing it to yourself, you will notice that the first two words of each line in the phrase are rhythmically preparatory to the next word.
In musical terms, "from this" is a pick-up and "Valley" is a downbeat. A pick-up is at the end of a measure. It is unstressed, and leads to the next downbeat. The downbeat is at the beginning of the measure, and has a clear stress. Next, it's easy enough to sing this phrase and feel that each line has four beats. (Just count to four, (expletive deleted), beginning on "Valley".) Until, that is, you get to the last line, "Smile". This is incomplete on its own, it has only three beats. Its completion is "for they", which is a pick-up to the next line and to the next phrase.
Already, we have defined a central issue of phrasing: that pick-ups are unstressed and lead to the downbeats, which are stressed. To make this happen, the player must begin to play the up-beat with less sound (less speed and pressure in the bow), increase the sound through the two pick-up notes, and then give the downbeat the most sound, the most speed and pressure in the bow, precisely at the beginning of the word "valley". The difficulties in doing this are, first, not to stress the beginning of the pick-up, which will most likely also be the beginning of a new bow direction; second, to increase the sound naturally (as a good singer would) through the pick-ups; third, to move the bow smoothly from the up-beats into the downbeat, avoiding any separation at the bow change; and last, to give the downbeat the right amount of stress, avoiding the potential crunch of sound resulting from the change of bow direction at the frog (bottom) of the bow. Next, consider if the eight lines constitute one or two phrases. For me (especially since I began by saying that folk songs are made up of four bar phrases), there are two phrases in these eight lines. But a case could be made that they constitute one phrase with two parts. Certainly, there will be more of a separation before the next phrase ("Come and sit…") than between ("Smile……..for they"), which may be considered the mid-point of one longer phrase. For the player's use of the bow, this tiny point matters a lot. The amount of separation, the fact that there is less at one point and more at another, is an issue that must be dealt with by the bow: should the bow come to a complete stop or just slow down? To stop means a moment of zero speed and pressure; the movement of the bow on the string stops; it might even be a moment to lift the bow off the string and place at a more convenient place, nearer to the frog, from which to begin the next note. The stopping (or the lifting and replacement) of the bow requires considerable control. Slowing the bow down and reducing the pressure to a NEAR stop, requires at least equal dexterity. The bow should not always be in a state of change from one degree of pressure and speed to another. If you're in the sunshine, or if you're playing "Red River Valley" and reach the word "sunshine", the bow should glory for a moment in its expression of this light, maintaining a constant state, matched by an equal intensity in the vibrato and pressure of the left hand finger playing the word. Thus far, I've been talking about probably the simplest type of phrase: the square four-beat four-bar phrase of a folk song. There are many such phrases in classical music, especially in the period of Haydn, Mozart, and early Beethoven. The relative simplicity of phrasing in that era was a reaction to the complexity of phrasing (having to do with counterpoint) of the Baroque. But in great music, there is never a constant regularity of phrasing. Haydn gloried in adding one, sometimes two bars, to an apparent four-bar phrase, and nobody would accuse Mozart or Beethoven of being square in this sense. Some second rate composers of the late 18th century (Dittersdorf is an outstanding example) can put one into a foul mood with their monorhythmic phrasing. The point is that in the best music, phrases are not regular. Thus the issues of the bow are multiplied when a phrase twists and turns more than does the red river valley. To make a phrase, one first has to want to make a phrase. In the extreme case, a student who has been taught only to move the bow evenly can play without any inflection whatsoever. It's not easy: try to sing a phrase that goes neither up nor down. The more frequent and much more pernicious case is a player who knows that music needs nuance but who is afraid to stick her neck out. Because if she goes strongly in a particular direction or gives a powerful emphasis, she might be WRONG; the critic (parent or teacher) in her head will tell her, "No! It goes THIS way, not that". So the intention of the player becomes to avoid a big mistake, and the music is washed out, bleached of affect. There is another basic problem that is equal to lack of commitment, and that is lack of understanding of style. As it is said, Mozart is not the same as Tchaikovsky, and if a cellist plays one as if it were the other, the results are not bland but hideous. - Fred Raimi |