Guitar solo tip 2 - breathing your phrases
Autor: Naamã Felipe | Publicado: 2011-08-27T11:04:00-07:00

 	Today's Guitar Solo Tip #2 &nbsp;is about breathing your phrases.
Learning to ‘breathe your phrases’ is one of the fastest and  	most effective ways to transform your phrasing skills from  	mediocre to excellent! The idea of comparing your guitar  	phrasing with your phrasing patterns when you speak is a  	very simple concept. But although simple, this is a very  	powerful idea that can transform the way you play. Let’s  	look at one of the best ways to work on this now.
Breathing your phrases: one of the things that come  	natural to us as we speak is the necessity to pause from  	time to time to get a breath of air. It isn’t often that you  	hear someone saying word after word, sentence after  	sentence, without stopping for air! However, it does happen  	and most of us have been on the receiving end of a one-way  	conversation like that at some point. How did it make you  	feel? In our own experience, we feel irritated with those  	types of encounters. No one likes to be talked “at”. Here’s  	the point we are trying to make: How many guitar-players talk  	“at” their listeners instead of trying to communicate  	something to them? It would appear that, for some guitarists,  	the whole goal of their “communication” is to dominate the  	“conversation,” using every technique known to man at top  	speed and without pause. We wonder if these players understand  	what effect this type of phrasing has on their listeners.  	Contrast that approach with a mature player who is, in fact,  	a virtuoso, but chooses to communicate with his audience.  	For sure, there will be flurries of wonderfully advanced  	playing – fast runs, speedy arpeggios, etc. – but this will be  	balanced with musical ideas containing beautiful vibrato,  	emotional note-bending, and rhythmic variation.  	We are not saying that fast, virtuoso playing is unemotional. It  	certainly is very emotional and passionate at times, and is  	a wonderful tool for self-expression. However, it is only one  	piece of the puzzle. One of the biggest problems some  	inexperienced players have is that they use their technical  	skill to cover up their poorly developed phrasing skills. In  	other words, they play fast constantly to try to mask the fact  	that they lack the necessary skills to truly communicate and  	express themselves. This is a shame, but it can be corrected.  	Okay, so hopefully you’ve decided that you do not want to be  	a guitarist who talks “at” his audience with very little to say.  	Let’s try this breathing exercise together. The point of this is to  	demonstrate that there is an inherent natural flow to effective  	communication. There must be words, notes, and substance,  	but there also must be space and rest.  	Step 1: Take a seat in your usual practice space. You should be  	sitting upright so that you can breathe properly. Inhale deeply  	as you would when you are getting ready to say something  	important. As you exhale, try and sing a little melody until you  	run out of breath. Give this a try before continuing.  	Did you do it? Most likely, your melody wasn’t very long.  	Don’t worry if it wasn’t the greatest melody in the world.  	Perhaps it wasn’t even an original melody... that doesn’t  	matter.  	Step 2: Repeat Step 1 four (4) times in succession. The 1st  	time, sing a melody. Then pause, and inhale. As you exhale,  	make your 2nd melody an attempt to “answer” your 1st one.  	The 3rd time, sing another new melody, and the 4th time,  	attempt to answer the 3rd melody. This process is called “call  	and response.” Many great blues singers and guitarists have  	mastered this technique (but this technique can be found in  	all styles of music). 	If you’ve done this, you now have four (4) bars of naturally  	flowing music that you composed, and you didn’t even touch  	your guitar.  	Make sure and practice doing this in as many musical  	situations as possible. Here are a few possibilities: the next  	time you are composing a song or melody, try this breathing  	method first. Sing your melodies along with the chords. Do  	this over and over until you find a melody you like. Then get  	your guitar and learn the notes. Also, be creative with this  	exercise. Use different rhythmic groupings, inflections, and  	dynamics. Use your imagination!