phrasing vs. rhthym

???

did you have a post, and edit it (cos you cant delete them here).. or are you opening an debate on whats better?

if you are.. i say Phrasing is more important.

Thanks for responding. Ok, I'll try this question again. I had asked about rhthym and how to improve it.
Is it dependent upon picking patterns or knowledge of scales?
I'm excluding strumming patterns because I try not to strum too much - only in a chorus to change effect when the melody (chord progressions) doesn't make enough of a change in the overall pattern of the song.
I prefer an 'arpeggio style' where I play each tone in the chord. Strumming sounds muddy so I don't like it unless I'm doing barre chords. But even barre chords are done with a slow, Spanish strum.
What exactly is meant by 'phrasing'? I've been told that I have 'innovative, unique phrasing.' I suppose that means that I make my own rhythm patterns as in fitting the melody to the lyrics. I don't follow a metronome. I assume that rhthym will improve when I learn more scales so I can play more 'jazzy.' Should I be able to control rhthym better before reaching a high level of scale ability?
It sounds like once I perfect scale ability I'll be able to travel more around the neck - something about playing 'scales over chords??'

Scales won't improve your rhythm. They're not related. Scales, of course, are sequences of tones. Rhythm deals only with the lengths of notes, any notes, drawn from a scale or not. As you play, your rhythm will get better, but it won't be because of any scale knowledge you have. Drummers generally have good rhythm (one would hope), but they don't usually know many scales. To improve, you can practice playing different rhythms by playing your scales using them, or you can learn songs that use interesting rhythms.

Phrasing is a combination of the notes you play and the way you play them. Just like phrasing when speaking, it consists of the places you put accents, the speed you go at, your volume and tone, and the rhythm you use (since speech has rhythm too).

Thanks Paul for the clarification.
Why can't there be some way to connect learning scales with chords? Such as C chord connected to the C major scale (a C chord is I,III and IV of a C scale - C,E,G,C), D chord connected to the D major scale (D,A,D,F#), etc....?? So that a learner can take baby steps while seeing how theory connects together within a song. Maybe the Dm chord is connected to a D harmonic or melodic minor scale in some way, Am chord's connected to the A harmonic or melodic minor scale, etc.?? So that when learning a song it's evident how the scales connect to the chords therefore we're not getting ahead or away from a sense of the theory all along the learning process. So that the guitarist can build a song repertoire (fun) not at the expense of theory (not fun)? Is that a possibility?

That's one of the big aims of the CAGED system of teaching - to integrate the five most common scale fingerings with the chord inversions directly related to them.

CAGED has its advantages, but I don't teach it as part of the beginning process. I prefer to do open chords and open position notes in standard notation; that's followed by the three basic triad inversions (the bar forms of E, A, and C as 4-string chords), then the dominant seventh inversions.

At that point a student knows how to form chords in several positions, and I can then relate things to the D and G open chords... and at that point I talk about the CAGED system and relate them to scales. I actually do a few other things first, like playing octaves to learn the fretboard.

The reason I leave the D and G moveable forms for last is that the E and G forms (with the same note on the 1st string... the G form C at 5th fret and the E form C at 8th fret) sound really close, as do the C and D form chords (playing a D with an open 4th string vs. playing with the 4th string 4th fret is a pretty subtle difference). Rather than overwhelm students with scale and chord forms, I like to keep the number of chord voicings simple while introducing things like melody chord playing. The other voicings make more sense when your ears are a bit more developed - something not enough students work on, in my humble opinion :)