For many years, I was stuck with a conundrum—how do you make a melody sing and keep time at the same time?

I remember playing a concert in Palais Wittgenstein in Dusseldorf in 1981, and the critic commented that I was stronger in the modern pieces, and that my Sor Op.22 lacked swing and showed a lack of understanding of the style.

For years, I wondered about what he meant.

Yes, modern works are easier to interpret because the beat is not such a strong feature, unlike the music of Bach and Sor where the beat is strong.

At the time, I didn’t know how to loosen up my phrasing without losing the pulse.

I finally found the answer in 1992 when I started recording my Bach album.

I started recording in February of that year. I thought I was going to be done in a few days. Little did I know how wrong I was.

When I played back the recordings of those early sessions, they sounded awful and not at all what I expected. They were very stiff and yes, lacking in swing again.

I kept on recording that spring semester but they did not get any better.

That summer, I practiced everyday with my Sony walkman, and I practiced with the recordings of Alicia de Larrocha and Alfred Brendel.

Every day, I sang (or grunted) into my walkman and at the end of summer, I finally had the breakthrough I had been waiting for with Nun Komm.

I suddenly found my phrasing loosening up and free to express itself.

I was no longer a slave to the beat. Instead, the beat was always in the background, supporting but not overwhelming the melody.

I knew I had found the answer. I re practiced the pieces all over again and in November of that year, finally felt happy with the recordings to get them ready for release.

I decided to call the concept ‘linear phrasing’ and I have been teaching it to my advanced students since then.

What is linear phrasing?

It is phrasing focused on the line as opposed to the beat, which I call metrical phrasing.

Guitarists tend to play metrically and pianists linearly.

To hear the difference between the two approaches, take any guitar and piano recordings of the same piece, let’s say Sevilla, and you’ll notice the difference.

There’re several steps to mastering linear phrasing and I will cover them in the few articles.

Posted on Saturday, February 25th, 2023 at 3:25 pm under AOV, creativity. Follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.