Finding the Words: Learning to Sing on the Flute

By Annie Wu

My singular goal that summer was to learn what it meant to “sing on the flute.” Naturally, I looked to singers. 

For three days the May before my senior year of college, I took the train up to Northern Philadelphia for lessons with acclaimed baritone Randall Scarlata. We joked that having the lowest voice coach the highest orchestral instrument was like putting a chickadee in the cage with a lion. Neither of us had ever done anything like this before.

At the top of my pile of music was Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, a nearly one-hour song cycle about the thin line between infatuation and psychological deterioration. Notably, the penultimate song finds new life in Schubert’s virtuosic flute variations, so I was itching to play a flurry of notes.

To my surprise, I never touched the flute in that first session. Instead, I stumbled through the German texts, the words oblong and bulky in my mouth. Randall’s recitations, on the other hand, were astounding – the booming yet cushioned percussion of B’s opening into the resonant floor of ä’s. Every single word held its own music. As I ping-ponged from English translation to German, I began mapping verbs and nouns to structure. The emotive qualities nascent in each pronunciation slowly revealed themselves to me. 

Returning to my flute, I found that it carried new weight. For the first time, I heard an inherently musical text donning Schubert’s cloak. Somehow, I needed to inflect this dual interaction through my instrument. How would I pronounce Nacht on the flute? Might I delay the core of my sound for N’s nasal-ness of the tongue touching the top of mouth? What about vibrato or breathing or articulation? Something about this “spoken” quality felt so intimate like I was peeking into Schubert’s study as he set each poem to music. Walking back to the train station that afternoon, I sensed that there was an entirely different way I could play my instrument. 

On the second day, we reached a line in the cycle that translates to, “Does she love me?” The story’s young man desperately looks into the stream, asking it – and really himself – whether he has won the affection of the titular miller’s daughter. The music is tender, reflective, and pleading in the softest way. Randall invited me to think about not only the sound I might use, but the literal emphasis as an indication of exactly what I meant. Working through every inflection, I watched the story morph in my mind’s eye. 

Does she love me?

Does she love me? 

Does she love me? 

Like a gemstone turned in the sun, each variation shifted the light’s focus just so. The question became: How did I see this character and this moment? What was I trying to say? 

My aperture had widened. Every choice – whether accent, pause, breath mark, or vibration – could transform a phrase’s meaning and sound, even without the words. Or perhaps because of them. Language, this deeply specific and expressive tool, unlocked for me musical possibilities I never imagined before. A flutist could be a singer too.

In our last session, Randall clapped his hands together in satisfaction, remarking, “If I were listening to your record, and I dropped a random needle on this stanza, I would know exactly which one you were on. I could hear the words.” It was electrifying. 

After that summer, I returned to Cambridge with path a forward. I raided the library shelves, played through songbook after songbook, listened to loads of singers, and ended up landing on one particular story to write my thesis on. I arranged music, created an album, and performed concept shows and lecture recitals. Years later, after refining these ideas, I taught a seminar on this relationship between music and words for musicians at Juilliard, along with countless private lessons outlining my newfound perspective.

From my students, I often get the question, “If we don’t say the words, wouldn’t the meaning get lost? What’s the point?” I get stuck in these loops too, of thinking that a transfer must be one-to-one: word equals note equals direct meaning. Asking “what’s the point” sometimes skirts the very essence of growth, which is in many ways, expansion. Rather than aim for accuracy, exploring these intersections is more like a dance. An intricate always-alive play between agents – text, music, composer, “singer,” instrument, and audience. Using words as a way to become specific about my intentions – how I’m playing and why – means that I will undoubtedly be more communicative. 

It is said that music’s power of expression is in its abstraction from specificity, the space for anyone to hear anything. To me, the beauty also lies in this idea that by being specific in your intentions as a musician – and using words as a tool for thinking – we create even more possibilities for audience interpretation. 

We carry a responsibility. Not necessarily to Schubert or to our teachers, but to ourselves as artists. To see the magic inside of every note. To unearth it, understand it, infuse it with new meaning. Bring it forth into the world. How powerful to strive always to become as convicted as possible in our story so that even when we don’t have the luxury of words, we can trust in the expansion of music. People will undoubtedly feel what we mean. 

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For the curious instrumentalist, I’ve compiled a brief list of principles and exercises to get you started on your journey of text-music exploration. 

 Principles:

• Place things in conversation. 

Literature and music. Dance and music. Visual art and music. There are a million books on interdisciplinary theory, but essentially, thinking about how different art forms operate can open up new paths to how you think about your craft. Take a basic example from visual art and music’s intersection: art-related words like color and texture are used in music! What does that mean about how we visualize sound? How does that open up how you might approach creating different textures on your instrument? 

Words represent thinking. 

Do you ever feel something bubbling but are not sure what’s coming up? And then it feels better when you journal it out or talk to a friend? Well, words are specific. They allow you to codify what you mean, give shape to your thoughts. I’m sure there are times when you are playing and feel that something is not quite right but aren’t totally sure what’s happening. This might be a moment to try out some of the exercises in the section below. Ask yourself what does this section sound like to me? Is there a story? What do I want to convey? How will I use technique to best tell that story? 

• Resist the path of least resistance. 

Maybe it goes without saying, but some phrases just come out easier certain ways. For example, on the flute, a phrase that swings up to the high register and then back down will probably first come out sounding much louder up top and then quieter at the bottom. Don’t stop there! A single shift in where you emphasize the phrase can change its whole meaning. Interrogate what you want to say, how you will do it, and then put it into practice. 

• Seek flexibility within parameters. So, playing the flute means, of course, that I can’t literally “speak” on my instrument. And string players don’t literally “articulate”. That said, within what you know about your instrument and your imagination of what you could sound like, how can you begin to imitate the patterns and sound of speech? Experiment with coming into a beat on the back end, stopping a note earlier, articulating with more force, or vibrating later. Expand your palate of possibilities. 

• Specificity begets expansion. Ultimately, all these principles are in an attempt to bring awareness to the number of choices we have, and to actually make one each time we perform. There’s a saying in the writing world that “the specific becomes the universal,” as in, the more you tell your story your way, the more people will relate to it. I use this same idea as it relates to text- and story- inspired playing. The clearer you are about what you want to express and how you will do it, the more your audience will hear what you mean. Even if it’s in their own interpretation – which it will be – I guarantee you the results will be more potent. 

Exercises:

Say “I love you” 20 different ways (you can). This is my favorite exercise to do with students. The method goes like this: imagine a scene, decide what technique you will use to create that feeling, test it out. For example, let’s say you’re thinking of someone furious that their lover spited them, ignoring the passion that has been poured into the relationship for years. You might want to scream the phrase, lean on “love” as the overwhelming feeling, over all others. Or, let’s say you’re imagining a teenager running out the door before school to catch the bus as mom tosses them a bagged lunch. Over the shoulder, they might nonchalantly and quickly say the words. Get used to this method of defining the idea first, then the technique. 

Watch videos of great singers and listen to vocal music. Sometimes my singer friends joke that I might be the only instrumentalist on earth that likes vocal music more. I just think that singers have a clearer path towards storytelling from day one of their practice. Words are essential for them! Find videos of great singers and watch how they move, how they stand, where their eyeline is. Watch the way they breathe and think about the way they are enlivening the text. Performing is an art, and sometimes being behind a music stand or focused on our instruments, we can forget to actually deliver the phrases to our listeners. People have their own tastes and opinions about favorites, but I think Cecilia Bartoli’s Vio che Sapete is charming, and Barbara Hendricks’ Fauré is breathtaking. 

Play through a vocal score. There are loads of these online, or if you are fortunate enough to have access to music library, you can browse the shelves. Good places to start are songs that work well on instruments (Fauré songs are great and in many compilations. Schubert works extremely well. Composers like Debussy and Ravel are harder because they tend to repeat notes on consecutive syllables.) Look up a translation and scribe the words into your part so you know the meaning underneath each note. Read the original text as best as you can (you can listen online first). Make a few decisions about what you what to do, and where, in the score. Try to recreate those inflections on your instrument. And have fun!

Bring storytelling possibilities to your instrumental music. Once you have unlocked a few of these skills, you can bring them to anything you play. The easiest place to start is a piece that already sounds very narrative (perhaps something with a triumphant call at the beginning, or a lyrical love song). In the same way you did with our “I Love You” exercise above, think of a story, translate that to instrumental technique, and try it out. Of course, I’m not saying that every note needs a word, but that’s certainly something you can try!

For fun, here are some examples of vocal arrangements I have performed. 

• Schumann’s Mignon Lieder
• Fauré’s Automne
• Mozart’s Voi che sapete 
• Fauré’s Les berceaux
• Fauré’s Le Fee de Chansons

Want to learn more about my ideas or take a lesson? I have flute studio openings currently (remote or in-person in Brooklyn) and also take one-time sessions. Reach out via my website!

Lessons: https://www.anniewuflute.com/teaching 

Website: www.anniewuflute.com

Social: IG @_annie_wu_

Youtube: www.youtube.com/anniewuflute

Album: https://www.anniewuflute.com/album 

About Annie Wu

Of flutist Annie Wu, The Mercury News said, “This artist, it seems, can do anything.” In 2015, Wu won first prize in the Astral Artists’ national audition and joined the Astral roster as one of their youngest artists. She is the first prize winner of the James Pappoutsakis Flute Competition, Yamaha Young Performing Artist Competition, YoungArts National Competition, Astral Artists’ National Auditions, and was named a Presidential Scholar in the Arts. As a concerto soloist, Wu has performed with the San Francisco Symphony, Vienna International Orchestra, California Symphony, Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, West Virginia Symphony, Livermore-Amador Symphony, Diablo Symphony Orchestra, and the San Jose Chamber Orchestra, and recitals have taken her to Boston’s Jordan Hall, Strathmore’s Mansion, and D.C.’s Phillips Collection among others. Passionate about various avenues of musical storytelling, her projects have included a solo flute commission from Grammy-nominated composer Anna Clyne titled Hopscotch, a narrative flute album of vocal music titled “They Call Me Mignon” which won Harvard’s Hoopes Prize, and a beatbox flute YouTube video with over 2 million views. Wu maintains a private flute studio, and has been a guest instructor for the Juilliard School, Royal Conservatory of Belgium, Play on Philly, Sacramento Flute Club, and public schools across the nation. As a graduate of the Harvard-NEC Dual Degree Program, she holds a B.A. magna cum laude in Comparative Literature from Harvard University and an M.M. from New England Conservatory where she studied with Paula Robison. She currently resides in Brooklyn where she teaches, writes, and hangs out with her friends and cat, Piper.