In a non-Archer sense of the word, how do percussionists think of phrasing? As a non-percussionist/string player, a phrase was a great place to take a breath for us regular humans that can't circular breath. The basic definition I was always given was 8 bars. That was always worked well for me. As a DJ, the 8 bars would tell me the percussionist is due for a cymbal crash ;-). I always got a chuckle when I'd get a piece of music where the composer would add a breath mark for the woods/brass players. Funny thing that breathing concept.