In common practice phrases are often four
bars or
measures long culminating in a more or less definite
cadence. A phrase will end with a weaker or stronger cadence, depending on whether it is an antecedent phrase or a consequent phrase, the first or second half of a period. However, the absolute span of the phrase (the term in today's use is coined by the German theorist
Hugo Riemann) is as contestable as its pendant in language, where there can be even one-word-phrases (like "Stop!" or "Hi!"). Thus no strict line can be drawn between the terms of the 'phrase', the 'motiv' or even the separate tone (as a one-tone-, one-chord- or one-noise-expression). Thus, in views of
Gestalt theory, the term of 'phrase' is rather enveloping any musical expression which is perceived as a consistent
gestalt separate from others, however few or many beats, i. e. distinct musical events like tones, chords or noises, it may contain. phrases in
Mozart's
Piano Sonata in F, K. 332, first movement. A phrase-group is "a group of three or more phrases linked together without the two-part feeling of a period", or "a pair of consecutive phrases in which the first is a repetition of the second or in which, for whatever reason, the antecedent-consequent relationship is absent". Phrase rhythm is the rhythmic aspect of phrase construction and the relationships between phrases, and "is not at all a cut-and-dried affair, but the very lifeblood of music and capable of infinite variety. Discovering a work's phrase rhythm is a gateway to its understanding and to effective performance." The term was popularized by William Rothstein's
Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music. Techniques include overlap, lead-in, extension, expansion, reinterpretation and elision. ==See also==