Dividing musical sentences or thoughts into melodic and/or rhythmic sections, similar to the effect of punctuation in language.
Refers to the breaths or "stops" inbetween notes. Natural phrasing will include "stops" after all periods, commas, semicolons, or colons. Additional phrasing may be necessary for the singer to take catch breaths or to achieve a certain style. It's an excellent idea for singers to sit down with sheet music in hand and mark their phrasing before they begin to sing. This helps prevent unexpected losses of breath and awkward phrasing that draws attention to itself.
Musical statements performed artistically so that the notes sound as though they belong together – similar to actual speech or poetic recital.
The shape of a melodic line.
the clear, lucid and articulated realization of phrases (see below). Phrasing is aided in performance by proper breathing, dynamic flow, note articulation and proper pauses.
In DJing, phrasing, also called stage matching, refers to alignment of phrases of two tracks in a mix. This allows the transition between the tracks to be done without breaking the musical structure.