How To Improve Phrasing/Feel?

[RobSilver7]

How do you improve your phrasing / feel? I appreciate this is really an almost impossible question to answer but any advice appreciated.

It sounds like you are conflating practice time with performance time. At practice time you can learn common licks, what scales fit what chords, arpeggios, etc. At performance time you should:

1. Have musical ideas
2. Use your ears to find the notes that express those ideas.
3. Have the “chops” to play those ideas.

You don’t have time to ferret around looking for ways to fit in what you’ve practiced. Can you imagine a solo for some tune in your head, say… Autumn Leaves? If not, you have to work on your imagination. Can you find the notes? If not, work on your ear. Can you play the notes? If not, work on your chops.

[pauln]

...despite having a decent theory knowledge of the 'right' things to play, as well as a good vocabulary of 'licks/lines' I can use over the various sections of the form. I just find that my playing still sounds like, well, s**t ! - just stiff/plastic and frankly inauthentic.

How do you improve your phrasing / feel? I appreciate this is really an almost impossible question to answer but any advice appreciated.

Is it just a case of shedding lines until they sound smooth, and importantly that you believe them, or am I missing something?

Apologies if this is a total beginner question.

...almost impossible question to answer... that's never stopped me before

Start by understanding you are developing and progress comes in sequence through time and effort, and experience; the thing about crawling, then walking, then running expresses this.

Melody
- the "head", the stock melody as composed you usually hear it at the beginning of a jazz tune, often played again at the end of the tune.

Variation
- general strategy of changes to melody, rhythm, and harmony.

Interpretation
- specific tactics to express style, tempo, mood, dynamics, vibrato, articulation, accents, strong/weak beats, forward motion... (a long list)

Phrasing spans the relationships among melody, variation, and interpretation; and continues on to be the foundation for improvisation.

Music imagined as a formal language (a system of symbolic entities whose constructions are subject to syntactical norms) ignores any meaning its constructions might have. This is important.

It is phrasing that assigns meaning to the music. Meaning is the musical source of authenticity, truth, "making a statement", "testifying", preaching, story telling... all the ways we describe musically grasping a musician's message in their playing.

Convey meaning in your playing through your instrument
- you have to have something to say through your instrument
- you have to play what you want to say through your instrument
- you have to know how to "talk" and "feel" through your instrument

The operative phrase is "through your instrument" but the point is that the meaning comes from you. Don't just shed lines until one of them "speaks" meaning; have something to say (express) first and deliberately evoke it from the instrument.

Start with stock melody lines and hear what they are saying. Alter them with variation and hear changes in what you think they now say. If you discover something, test it on a different melody and find out why or why not it works the same way.

You should work with just simple variation for a while until your instrument learns to talk (effectively expresses different meanings). Later, explore what you can do with the dimensions of interpretation. Make sure you always start with meaning in mind; don't ever let the instrument just babble without meaning.

The most important thing is to listen to absolutely every sound you play, every time, all circumstances, all contexts.

[AdroitMage]

ALl said above plus record yourself and listen back, short forms - start with one chorus, then listen and change what you dont like

+1

Recording and listening to yourself playing against a backing track is huge.

Note selection is also huge and part of good phrasing

[AdroitMage]

My real answer: start taking lessons with Professor Greene, BGVL. He will get you straight on time, and feel, and phrasing too. Make sure to ask questions about it.