Tonal Phrase Book - A Systematized Arrangement of Material for Reading Music by Its Movement or Thought #250800

The minute phrasing employed is not intended as the only way in which the phrases may be rendered. In fact, some of the divisions indicated are so slight that the phrase marks would almost tend to mislead. The same person singing these phrases might take them differently on different days and two persons would vary considerably in their choice, especially on some of the phrases. The idea of the phrase marks is to draw attention to the fact that these bits of melody are not to be delivered mechanically but constantly molded or modulated in their progress so that there will rarely be two notes in succession that will have equal emphasis whether in stress or duration, however similar they may be.