old-guy tip: to players from just-beyond-novice up to/including my betters...

[bloke]

If YOU use additional musically-appropriate articulations - beyond tuh/duh/uh - and insert musically appropriate within-a-dynamic-range dynamic changes (rather than mechanical/static dynamics) - you know: just like those "real musicians" who you've heard...

...Your COLLEAGUES will eventually notice, you'll give them the courage to do these things as well, and your chamber group, band, orchestra, whatever (guess what?) will SOUND BETTER.

bloke "just sayin' "

[tubanh84]

I will go one further here: There is no excuse not to shape phrases and lines from the bottom.

We generally have one of the technically easiest parts in any group in which we are performing. Meaning we have the spare brain power to listen to what's going on around us, keep very conscious of the phrasing, and magnify it.

I have never been the most technically proficient player. I can play a C above middle C precisely once a day. I can't make it through Bydlo, even at the beginning of the day. Probably never be able to do the final variation in Carnival of Venice.

However, and I say this honestly, I have never played in a group setting in which everyone else in the group didn't love playing with me and feel markedly better about their product with me in it. And it's because you don't have to be a virtuoso to shape a phrase with whole and half notes, or with ooh-pah's. The melody wants to swell? You swell with them. They want to disappear? Drop the bottom out for them. They want an entrance to hit? Front it. Rubato? Memorize the line and watch them.

If we aren't playing a technically difficult part, and we're not adding to the musicality, what exactly are we doing?

[bloke]

Yes to all.