hi in this tutorial I'm continuing this
series of the art of the art of musical
playing the art of musicality and and it
is an art but it's also a science
science that can be quantified and
explained and learned and trained I
before Y was talking about crescendos
and decrescendos and how we do those so
this is this is along those lines but
this is a really specific little device
that if you can master this then then
you will have a very powerful tool in
for shaping musical phrases and this
little device we call it a taper and and
we use this in different occasions
generally speaking it's the fade-out at
the end of a note most most playing most
pieces end with a little bit of a decay
now
guitar and piano instruments where you
have a striking of the note there is an
immediate immediate decay and it's long
with stringed instruments we still put a
little decay at the ends of notes but we
can wait we can do it at the very last
second and it just creates some elegance
otherwise our endings would be very
blunt and cut off and it wouldn't sound
your sound very nice so this is this is
part of being very elegant so the tapers
can also be used in the interior parts
of phrases and they work like commas and
periods where they delineate groups of
notes and create ideas and thoughts and
gestures so the idea is that there are
times where you have more than one note
together or you or the last note of a
little group of notes you lighten the
pressure you make it less and we do this
in in very specific ways we don't want
we don't want interruption in the sound
we want continuous sound but we also
want these areas where we have light and
space in between phrases just like we do
in speech with commas and periods so so
I'll give you a couple several examples
so this is this isn't a Mozart Sonata
and this is very very very common in
Baroque and classical pieces we see
these gestures frequently and you'll
recognize it when you hear it so this
little theme here
this is kershel 379 it's a nice little
Sonata so I'm just going to play play
this opening theme and in the end of
this phrase ends with this nice taper
it's it's a it's a very common gesture
that you'll recognize
so the gesture the taper is right here
so when we make a taper the first thing
we do is we lean in we sink in we deepen
the tongue and then we relax the tone so
it gets emphasis to the note preceding
the taper and in this case this is the
leading tone it's very common to
emphasize the leading tone creates a
little tension and then you have a nice
satisfying resolution but without that
taper you know it just doesn't have that
classical spirit so now the measure
before that we have these little do
plaits couplets we call them and it's
when you have a succession of pairs of
notes with it and Ensler's on each of
these pairs and it's very typical and
especially in Baroque to to emphasize
the first one and lighten the second one
so that those are little teeny interior
tapers and I do that with both speed and
and and pressure now we'll talk about
training those in the next video so I
just want to give you enough example so
you can recognize them and you know what
to do with them
and here's another just right after that
here's a perfect example
so we bring we emphasize just a little
bit and note right before the taper and
if I didn't again would be okay but it's
not as refined it's not as elegant so
tapers okay back from will go back a
page because there's several in this
phrase again this is the same Sonata so
here is here's the opening see those two
slurred notes coming here taper here's
another one
emphasizing these tones that lead
another one okay and then the phrase
grows so these these these little tapers
look look for them look for places to
make them and and they're in there in
the Suzuki book - I'll give you a few
examples in in a Suzuki literature where
you can kind of start working on this
idea of interior phrasing and and many
of them are marked they're marked with
de crescendos and in this sense it's the
taper it's not so much we're making a
very general descent in volume level
it's just making elegant phrase endings
so here's the beret the last piece and
book three I'll play the end here so
these two notes bum bum the last one is
always lighter it's a taper to taper on
an up-bow here's another one here's the
Baca BA in G minor and again these
little phrases are marked but I just
want you to identify them as you can
call them tapers if you want you can
call them elegant phrase endings but
saying the same thing lightening we
light lighten the pressure we keep the
bow moving always keep the bow speed and
then we'll talk more about that but here
it is that last note of the phrase is
light is lighter than the preceding now
here are these little teeny little
tapers with these same thing with these
couplets
okay we'll still find a few more this is
just one of the phrases that I'm
spotting here heavy light heavy light so
again grouping small sections to these
little phrase le'ts ending with a taper
there they're all over the place and
especially in again baroque and
classical literature when we get into
Romantic literature there's less of that
on the interior of phrases and Romantic
literature we tend to have super super
long sustained bowing between kind of
everything just making it very gluey and
sube but about in Farrokh and classical
the taper is is a very common technique
very common gesture