October 27, 2025
About the Author: Sonja Joubert
Phrasing in piano sheet music is indicated by a long curving line over a group of notes.
These notes normally form a melodic line that one can compare with a sentence you speak.
For example, let’s think about someone asking you a question and then you answer it.
Maybe you are asked: ‘How are you doing today?’ The five words here will all be grouped under one phrase mark.
Then the answer to the question would probably be something like: ‘I am very well today, thank you’ forming another phrase.
Why Are There Phrases Marked in My Sheet Music?
As in speaking (language) or singing, these natural lines are grouped together on your sheet music and marked with a phrase mark so that the player can see where the musical idea or sentence starts and where it ends.
Does It Really Play Any Significant Role?
Phrasing is very important for interpretation of music.
It helps with your playing to have phrase marks, so you can beautifully play the music so one can clearly hear the question in the music and then the answer.
You Could Now Ask — How Will I Do This Phrasing?
When speaking, you naturally breathe at the end of a question and then continue again, in the same way your musical line needs to breathe.
It can be like breathing at a question mark or like breathing at the end of a phrase when one answers a question.
So phrasing indicates breathing spaces for your music instead of having a long non-stop legato line without any curve or breathing.
It’s natural for a person when they speak to let the voice drop at the end of a phrase or a question and then to breathe. It’s exactly the same with playing a phrase on your piano.
The end of phases are always softer unless otherwise indicated.
Your music needs to naturally flow and ebb and breathe at the end of a phrase. You do this by:
- feeling and
- hearing where your melody goes according to your phrase marking,
- then gently lift off your hand briefly to create that space needed at the end of a sentence.
All notes within a phrase are played in a legato way unless they added staccato or other signs.
Shaping Beautiful Phrases Is Very Important for Playing Beautiful Music
Normally a phrase will start softer, then move up in crescendo and at the end of the phase it always brings the sound down to end a phrase, unless the composer explicitly indicated it not so.
- Phrasing makes it visually easier for the reader to see how the music develops and how to interpret it. It will give you clarity and help the melodic theme and how to play it.
Let us briefly look at the smallest phrase mark – the two-note phasing or two-note slur:
The two-note slur or phrasing is the shortest phrasing but one of the most beautiful and most effective sounds you will learn to play! It’s just delightful to play a two-note phrase.
Like at any given phrase mark, there is a lifting off at the end of a phrase, so it is the same for the two-note slur.
One has to come off at the end of the second note and not ignore the two-note slur. It has an amazing effect in your playing of a piece, creating a beautiful feel.
Make sure that you learn how to play the two-note slur easily and correctly.
How Would You Play It Physically?
It helps to think of a down up movement of the whole hand and especially using the wrist.
On the first note of the slur, let your hand drop right into the keyboard. Let your wrist drop down all the way onto the keys, putting a bit of weight on the keys.
On the 2nd note or the slur (the end of the slur), let the hand float off into the air without consciously playing the last note. It is as though it’s just touched by the finger floating.
This floating off creates a small moment of breathing or space before playing the next notes on your music sheet.
In the two-note slur there is a definite stronger feel on the first note and the second is very brief and much softer.
The best way to think about the second note is that of a floating off feel. Let your teacher demonstrate to you so you can hear the difference of right and wrong, or beautiful versus not beautiful playing of a two-note slur.
Enjoy phrasing!
It’s truly wonderful to have these indications and be able to do them well.
Listen to how your music is transformed with just paying attention to phrasing. It’s quite extraordinary!
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