Music is, in so many ways, all about the phrasing.  When you experience someone as a "very musical" performer, the technical musical thing that is happening is phrasing--phrasing that best showcases the emotion or meaning of the music being presented.  For the best musicians, phrasing becomes like breathing and requires little thought.  Most of the rest of us work at it most of the time. But one of the most important things we learn, as we learn to phrase, is this rule:  the high note is hardly ever the point of the phrase.  This rule applies to singers and to instrumentalists;  the most important thing about a phrase is its destination...and it is…