End of slurs/phrases

[jamie_liszt]

Hey

I played Chopin Ballade no 1 (half of it) im in the process of learning this piece to the pianist i played for in the con, we concentrated on the first part. He said make the melody sing more , louder maybe. But once again my teacher tells me to play each note at the end of a slur very soft, but he was telling me play it louder, make it stand out and sing. can someone give me explanation to this, you do play softer at the end of a slur right? but not as much as my teacher thinks, can someone explain slurs and phrases and just explain the above.

thanks

[danyal]

Yes I understand what they both mean. Sing every single note, but within a phrase there are some notes that are more important than others. Especially in Chopin, the melodies flow, and the phrases have to end, almost wisper out, so dont accent the last note of the phrase. It ruins the beauty. Listen to the melodies, how do you want them to sound, to flow? Bring out some notes more than others, whatever fits. And with Chopin specifically, do not accent the last notes of phrases, its inappropriately rude. 

[maryruth]

About Slurs and phrases....Each one is a musical sentence, and like when you are having a conversation do you accent and yell the last word of your sentence?  Only if 1--It's a quetion or 2 you're mad at someone.  Listen to your speech--in general conversation the first and last words are never louder than the middle.  Sometime your may be speaking loudly sometimes softly, but follows a similar pattern.  Music is a language in much the same way.  Listen for the sentences.  Listen for the conversations...That's what those phrase and slur marks are telling you.  They are our punctuation marks

[aragonaise]

Yup, i would like to think of phrasing as breathing, something akin to speaking in a conversation or singing to a song. Sometimes you draw a deep breath before speaking, and sometimes you are not conscious of your breathing, and that's it with music. You decide how you want to breathe.

But never accent the end of a phrase. We should let the phrase ease off on its own, like how we take our breaths.