Musical Phrase

Music is a lot like spoken languages in that it can be subdivided into phrases. A phrase in music is similar to a complete sentence in English. There is a small pause after each phrase in the middle section of Holst's "Jupiter." The students can visual mark the end of the phrases by changing direction of their arm as they move a streamer in the air. Students should be aware of the music and try to time their movement to be the same length as the phrase. This will take some thinking ahead for the students because some of the phrases are long while others are short.

This could be expanded by trying to identify other phrases in other pieces. Students as groups could critically discuss where the different phrases start and stop.