Phrase marks vs slurs

I’m thinking to the beginning of Ravel’s Pavane. The flute has a long phrase slur meaning you must preserve a strong sense of fluidity and continuity. But some player may want to take very short breaths at the end of motives.

With sample playback, having that long phrase played back by the same legato articulation would result in something really boring. Being able to use (hidden) legato slurs for playback, separate from the long (shown) phrasing slur would result in a much more pleasant and realisti playback.

Paolo

I can’t remember where the quote came from, but I’m almost certain it isn’t my own invention:

“The only function of slurs over more than about four notes is to make the score look pretty”.

If the performers don’t “get” how the music is meant to be phrased without detailed instructions, the result of slavishly attempting to following the instructions probably won’t be very convincing anyway.

  1. The same symbology indicates string bowings, and bow direction can very easily extend way beyond 4 notes.

  2. The majority of stuff I write is performed with limited rehearsal. Often there are subs who must play the music live without every having seen the music before. One might argue that a competent musician should get a sense of the phrasing after a few times through in rehearsal. But in my world, that is a luxury I don’t often have. The way people play my arrangements is a reflection on me. I want them to have as much information as is helpful so that they will make me look better. I certainly agree it is possible to over-notate, but I don’t think a 4-note limit on slurs gets anywhere close to over-notation in most cases.

1 Like

People seem to be at cross-purposes here. One wants the marks for live performers (which AFAIK is already possible) while another wants playback differentiation between slurs and phrase marks, which is quite a different matter.

Probably so. I am not sure what people are asking for with respect to playback. The slur marking can designate several things:

  1. It indicates a musical phrase. That may imply some space between phrases, but if such a space is really wanted, it seems to me that why we have breath marks and caesuras. And an advanced musician is likely to “shape” the phrase with emphasis and timing mid-phrase, and I am not sure what to expect from a computer program trying to do likewise.

  2. On a string instrument, the marking indicates bowing – literally continue the bow direction for all notes under that marking. Certainly an advanced playback interpreter could simulate that aspect.

  3. It usually means legato playing. That happens automatically on a string instrument if you don’t change bow direction, so that mark is fairly consistent across all instruments.

It seems to me all three usages result in a very similar performance interpretation. I don’t understand what distinction is trying to be made here.

I put everything in a score that might lead to a time-wasting question, followed by a time-wasting discussion, followed by a follow-on time wasting question. Plus I’d hate to play Chopin without his often surprising phrase marks.
In terms of playback, it might be useful for Dorico not to slur notes that are only phrase-marked.

I have just found this thread whilst looking for answers for setting music for singers. In singing, there is a definite difference between a phrase mark and a slur, because a slur specifically is used to indicate a melisma (one syllable sung over more than one pitch), whilst a phrase mark indicates legato articulation. Is there any way to show this in Dorico please?

To be honest, I just assumed lines were sung legato unless rests/breath marks were present. (Edit: With performers using their judgment for long passages) But there you go!

This is a pet peeve of mine, so I will chime in.

The word “phrasing” has often been used as a synonym for “slurring” which is unfortunate and confusing. It would be better to reserve “phrasing” to mean feeling and showing the individual phrases of the music in performance. Musical phrases can have all kinds of articulation, as shown by slurs and other indications.

The composers of the classical canon didn’t use phrase marks, because phrasing was assumed to be self-evident and often too complex to be notated. They only used slurs. Later editors of their music introduced “phrase marks”, often obliterating the original slurring and the distinction between articulation and phrasing. Fortunately modern editions have restored the original slurring and gotten rid of the “phrase marks.”

If a composer feels the need to show the phrases notationally, I think that would be better to use some other notation, something less cluttering, such as inverted L brackets etc., but not slurs.

2 Likes

Perhaps I’m too traditional, but unless it’s irregular or the composer desires breaths at specific points, it seems pretty useless to indicate phrasing for singers. They will breathe where it makes most sense, or just as often: where they need to by nature. Usually grammar has a say in all of this too. The only time phrasing is really helpful is whenever it is not clear (complex metering, irregular phrases, or when a standard phrase is dissected into smaller parts upon repeat for special effect) or, to indicate that an area that would normally accommodate a lift should not do so.