Phrase (music)

In music a phrase (Greek ?????, sentence, expression, see also strophe) is a section of music that is relatively self contained and coherent over a medium time scale. In common practice phrases are often four and most often eight bars, or measures, long. A rough analogy between musical phrases and the linguistic phrase is often made, comparing the lowest phrase level to clauses and the highest to a complete sentence. Thus a phrase will end with a weaker or stronger cadence depending if it is an antecedent or consequent phrase, respectively. Metrically, Edward Cone analyses the "typical musical phrase" as consisting of a "initial downbeat, a period of motion, and a point of arrival marked by a cadential downbeat," while Cooper and Meyer use only two or three pulse groups (strong-weak or strong-weak-weak) (DeLone et. al. (Eds.), 1975, chap. 3).

Sources

• DeLone et. al. (Eds.) (1975). Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0130493465.
• Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (1990). Music and Discourse: Toward a Semiology of Music (Musicologie générale et sémiologue, 1987). Translated by Carolyn Abbate (1990). ISBN 0691027145.
• 1980 New Grove
• 1958 Encyclopédie Fasquelle
• Larousse)
• Falk (1958).
• Davie (1966).
• Stein (1962).
• Stein, Deborah (2005). Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195170105.
• Burkhart, Charles. "The Phrase Rhythm of Chopin's A-flat Major Mazurka, Op. 59, No. 2".