Guitar Phrasing
As we do when we speak, each guitar player puts his or her own personal touch into playing their instrument. This personal style is called guitar phrasing and it is very much like speech patterns, in that we choose how to interpret a song, add or detract our own color in guitar chord phrasing, tease or race a rhythm to make a statement. Whether we are picking or strumming or even not playing while waiting-out a dramatic silence, if we are staying in the ‘grove’, timing of the piece, we can still make the piece our own from understanding guitar phrasing lessons and applying them liberally.

Though it is most often spoken about with jazz guitar phrasing, guitar phrasing really doesn’t speak to just one style. Basically, as we color our language with inflections of speech, so we can when we play. A less technical skill (not a technical skill at all) then strumming or picking, a good guitar phrasing lesson focuses more on bringing the player’s personality out then teaching anything truly specific. This is really a ‘feel’ thing and though that term is quite esoteric, there really isn’t much more to guitar phrasing then feel. As we would ‘phrase’ something we say as a question, when we could probably just as easily make it a statement, we approach a particular song, or part of a song, with maybe aggression or a laid-back attitude, which brings our personality into it. Yes, jazz guitar phrasing is full of these changes in inflection (a lot of jazz playing is how you play a particular standard not that you are playing that standard) but a player can put his or her individual personality into any genre of music they play.
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Guitar Phrasing