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Phrasing can make your performance special. To phrase is to do with music exactly the same thing you do when you tell a story or communicate language expressively. Use dynamics and expressions to convey your feelings about a piece of music. Some of the ways of phrasing are moving tempos forward or slowing down, making crescendo's (getting louder) or diminuendo's (getting softer) show direction or emphasize certain vital notes. Very often the traditional way to phrase in music is to get louder as you go up and softer as you go down in the scale but this is not a rule. Singing the piece in your head as you play helps understand how it should be played.
Exaggerate dynamics and make every single note count. Sometimes we feel as though we are playing dynamics but in order for others to hear them, we need to do much more.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Great lesson, Pierre. I think maybe one of your best ever!
"This young wine may have a lot of tannins now, but in 5 or 10 years it is going to be spectacular, despite the fact that right now it tastes like crude oil. You know this is how it is supposed to taste at this stage of development." ~ Itzhak Perlman
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Thank you FM! Quite beautiful. I think I can do it in another 100 years. I am confident about that.
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it ..(William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night)
I listen for phrasing much more than the acrobatics that often dominate a violin piece but it took me a long time to overcome my worship of the technical. Still requires concentration.
Phrasing is barely possible if I am stumbling over the printed notes.
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I loved this lesson! Not as easy as it looks thought when trying to play with the right intonation already takes a lot of concentration (and bowing straight etc), but really something to start practicing when you know a piece well! Thanks Pierre!
"It can sing like a bird, it can cry like a human being, it can be very angry, it can be all that humans are" Maxim Vengerov
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Thanks guys
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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Pierre this is a great lesson. Made sense and you are just the guy to explain phrasing ... you are an expressive guy (all part of your charm and talent).
Working on a piece with no words.....so the phrasing is a bit of a struggle for me right now, but I do see how it is going to make a huge difference when I get the hang of it.
Toni
Thanks again for another great lesson.
Vibrato Desperato.... Desperately seeking vibrato
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Very helpfull lesson FM! I like your editing near the end
I have played only one instrument that almost completely ignores phrasing...........the highland bagpipes. Except for fingering embelishments......its all or nothing. I like the wide variety of sound possible with the violin. Thanks.
"The dictionary is the only place where success comes before work." - Mark Twain
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So cool. I think I am but know I am not, certainly it doesnt come across very much. Im definately working on it. Some of the things you say sound like me,,,or is it that I sound like you? probably. ha ha, comes from spending so much time here watching vids. Keep em coming!
"Please play some wrong notes, so that we know that you are human" - said to Jascha Heifetz.
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Thanks everyone 
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
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This was great and hugely helpful, Pierre. You're so right about sometimes we think we're phrasing when we're really not. The difference between your rendition and mine is like night and day, and that's not taking into account the technical and skill differences, of course!
Your vibrato adds even more emotion, but that will have to wait for me.
I'm inspired to start trying this right away. This might even be something I can work on while my wrist is healing since it's a slow, calm song.
When the work's all done and the sun's settin' low,
I pull out my fiddle and I rosin up the bow.
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Last night I was sitting waiting for my order at the Chinese takeout and played this video on my phone while I waited. You wouldn't believe the amount of people that stopped what they were doing and listened to your video. It wasn't up loud at all either.
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Cool Thanks guys.
Diane, I made it for you after not seeing you on Skype. Figured I might as well do it so that it benefits several people.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
TRUE-TRUE-TRUE!!!!!!
That's a twighlight zone!
That's what my teacher always tells me.!.
As for me, dynamic is much harder than even to have an acceptable intonation!
But i'm trying-trying-and trying For now i'm definitely not expressive (or wrong-expressive) LOL, hopefully it'll get better =). I understand all of it and try to tell the story.... but it doesn't come out the way i hear it 
My teacher says - it's like painting. For now i'm volume-blind 
Is there such thing? Is it fixable? My teacher suspects that i have no soul and my brain is square formed LOL!
Thank You kindly, FiddlerMan!!!! =)
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Fiddlerman said
CoolThanks guys.
Diane, I made it for you after not seeing you on Skype. Figured I might as well do it so that it benefits several people.
Sorry about that, Pierre! I haven't been on my personal computer much this week because of work obligations outside of normal business hours.
Just as well, though, that you posted this for all to see...seems like it's helpful to a lot of members.
Thanks again!
When the work's all done and the sun's settin' low,
I pull out my fiddle and I rosin up the bow.
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