What is Phrasing?
I think the best way of describing this is how a piece 'flows' when it is played. This involves not only the 'emphasis' you place on individual notes or series of notes, but also where/when the notes are played. Often, when you look at the sheet music, notes are 'rigidly' placed in the bar, usually with the first note of any melody line being placed firmly at the beginning of the bar.
"Phrasing" when singing, or playing a piano is different to playing a keyboard. When playing a keyboard we more often than not are using a 'Rhythm' and a 'Style', so we don't have the option to phrase the music by slowing down or speeding up. Instead, we can play the notes in the melody slightly differently each time we play it. The video below is a DEMO on a guitar, but he shows quite clearly how a few notes in a song can be played with a different emphasis on the length of a note without changing the melody by adding extra notes in or taking them out. And he also makes a very valid comment about how sheet music is often written in a very 'standard and basic' way so it doesn't appear too complicated (he describes this as being written in a "square" manner), which would put people off from buying it.
And here is a DEMO on a piano explaining the essence of 'phrasing'.
We often put our own 'stamp' on a piece of music and play it as the mood takes us .. both with emphasis and when notes come in. The most common example of 'when notes come in' is to play a note just before the first beat of the bar .. when the sheet music says to play it on the first beat of the bar. This is what JohnT had done in his piece Any Dream Will Do. Listen to it below. John comes in with the melody on the first beat of the bar first time round, but in other phrasing comes in just before the first beat of a bar.
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Any Dream Will Do (MP3) played by John Taylor
And another example, from me. In this one I have played the 'pattern' of the melody differently in the three lines of the verse. The first line is straight 'as is'; the second line comes in just before the first beat of the bar; and in the third line I have played the notes with an 'evenly placed emphasis' on each note. Then in the Chorus, by using a 'piano' voice I have been able to make specific notes play 'louder' .. and put in some 'runs' between the notes.
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As Time Goes By (MP3) played by Hugh Wallington
Hugh