on phrasing [part1]

Have you ever wondered why you do not sound like the musician of your choice, despite playing the exact same notes over the same chord progression?

isn't that mysterious? how can you not sound like someone else if you play the same musical lines, that doesn't make any sense, does it?
I'll show you why in this article.
The problem is that you didn't play the same notes as the musician you transcribed - not even close, although you might think you did.
you don't sound like him, because you didn't phrase the notes like he did.
the process of phrasing is so complex that you'll never actually sound like the jazz guitarist of your choice - there are anatomic reasons for this.

now is that a reason for resignation? not at all

the good news is that you can firstly get very close to the sound of your ideal, and secondly that you can develop your own unique sound and phrasing.
Good jazz phrasing is one of those skills you need to internalize in order to eventually sound like a jazz musician. if you fail to learn how to phrase in jazz music, you are never gonna sound like one of your idols, period. no matter how much you work on scales, sequential improvisation, transcribing, technique and other areas, you will fail - in other words there is no way around this area.

once you've learned how to phrase properly this skill will become the pathway to a seemingly inexhaustible set of new musical ideas. you will be able to burst your musical boundaries so to speak. if that is what you want, you should dedicate a fair amount of your time to getting this skill handled.
I am stunned by the fact that this area of phrasing is so rarely included into so called "jazz guitar methods". to me this is really one of the most obvious weak points of these methods and schools.

with that in mind, what are the steps you need to take in order to learn how to phrase? there are a lot of concepts on how to learn to phrase properly.
today i am going to share with you one of the most effective concepts, probably the most effective concept overall.
this concept is again counter-intuitive. and here it is:

"Learn how to phrase in swing music"

There's so many important sub-concepts in the area of phrasing that need to be learned and you can absorb them all at once if you learn how to properly phrase your lines in swing music. i know it doesn't sound like a musical epiphany, but stick with me here.

if you learn "swing phrasing", your awareness concerning phrasing in different styles of music will be magnified. your intuition will just make you feel what the right way to phrase in other styles is, be it latin, fusion, neo-bop, funk, pop or whatever.
let me stress here that i am not particularly fond of swing as a music style. when at first i was confronted with this concepts i did everything i could think of to avoid practicing this. but when i finally put my preconceptions aside and dived into this, i was amazed by the whole new world of musical possibilities that opened up for me.

i think it's vital to understand why some area (in this case phrasing) is so immensely important before you dedicate your precious time to it, that's why i've been very accurate in describing the importance of phrasing.

let's get started.
pick three jazz standards in swing. for example pieces like autumn leaves, stella by starlight, whisper not etc. will do. pick something you like to play.

next play the theme, try to play all the notes _legato_ and try to accent the offbeats (the 1+, 2,+, etc). do it very slowly first and when you're sure where the offbeats are increase the tempo a bit. you have to do this religiously, be sure you really hit the offbeats. and do not forget to play legato (with playing legato i mean still use alternate picking, but make sure there's no breaks between individual notes.)

next listen to a version of a jazz guitar master in swing, people like benson, martino, herb ellis or barney kessel. pay attention to their phrasing when playing the theme. you'll realize they will accent offbeats almost all the time. sometimes they will put the accent on the beat.
try to imitate their phrasing. be accurate.
if you keep doing this for a few weeks, you'll notice that you will listen to music differently. you'll pay attention to the particular phrasing of your favourite jazz guitarist a lot more, automatically.

this is the first step on your way into a whole new world of musical possibilities.
part 2 to follow.

for information on how to practice phrasing efficiently read my article
"90 minutes of efficient practice".