How Language Shapes Our Musical Expression

Phrasing and Articulation

Adapted from my article in American Recorder, Vol. LXVI, No. 3 (Fall 2025)

Over the years, I’ve taught recorder in Dutch, Spanish, English, French, and Catalan — sometimes all in the same week. From conservatory lessons in Madrid to online workshops with international students, I’ve noticed something surprising: the way someone speaks shapes the way they play.

Students don’t just bring different musical backgrounds; they bring different ways of speaking and as such different articulations, phrasings, and even sounds. Their native language informs how they use their tongue, how they shape vowels, where they feel resonance, and even how they imagine rhythm. And when it comes to recorder playing, those small differences can make all the difference.

This article invites recorder players and teachers alike to reflect on how native language shapes articulation, phrasing, and tone. Even historical composers — especially in Renaissance vocal and consort music — were guided by the rhythms and vowels of their own tongue. Exploring this helps us listen differently — to the music, to our students, and to ourselves — and gives us clearer tools for recognizing our own habits and learning needs.

Music as Language

The phrase “Music as language” famously appears in Harnoncourt’s writings on rhetoric in performance — but if we take the idea one step further, we can also ask: whose language are we speaking?

When we play music from the Renaissance or Baroque period, we often forget that the composers were hearing phrases not just as abstract musical shapes, but through the lens of their own language. The rhythm of speech, the stress of syllables, even the color of vowels — all of these shaped how a composer imagined a line should flow.

In French, the stress typically falls on the final syllable of a phrase, creating a smooth, forward-moving sense of line. Spanish and Italian tend to place stress on the penultimate syllable, giving phrases a rounded, lilting shape. German and Dutch often stress the first syllable, resulting in a more vertical, front-loaded articulation. English is more irregular, with shifting patterns and stronger contrast between stressed and unstressed syllables. These patterns shape how we feel musical rhythm, how we articulate, and how we naturally phrase a line.

When we work with vocal consort music, the language of the text is part of the music itself. I often invite students to speak or sing a phrase aloud, just to feel how the words shape the rhythm and articulation. Of course, this isn’t always easy — I’ve heard some wonderfully curious attempts at French or German from Spanish-speaking students (after which we all share a good laugh). When the language is unfamiliar, even using a pronunciation app or Google Translate can help give a sense of the accent and vowel shape.

If you feel up to it, or comfortable in the language, try reading a musical line aloud, slowly and expressively, as if it were a sentence. You might find yourself naturally placing emphasis in different places than in your native tongue, elongating certain notes, or giving the phrase a new contour. Where do the vowels sit in your mouth? Where does the sound resonate?

These aren’t abstract questions — they directly affect your sound and your sense of direction. It’s playful, but revealing. In the end, the way we speak finds its way into the music — whether we realise it or not.

Language Has a Shape

Our spoken language isn’t just a habit — it’s an anatomy. It trains which part of the tongue we default to, how we hold vowels, and what kind of sounds our mouth considers normal.

Latin-language speakers — Spanish, Italian — often have a very agile front of the tongue. Germanic-language speakers — Dutch, English, German — tend to use the back of the tongue more. This difference has real consequences for articulation.

The French “u”, for example, is ideal for recorder players: it uses a compact, fronted middle tongue, with minimal movement on the sides. But the Spanish “u” (similar to the English “oo”) softens the middle of the tongue, forming a hollow bowl. That can make the tongue noisier and less stable. In my early years teaching in Spain, I translated the Dutch-French “u” directly into its Spanish equivalent — and quickly realised it didn’t do the same job.

I now teach students to find something closer to “ee” or “è,” with a more compact middle, and then narrow the lips slightly — as if they were stuck between two sliding doors. It takes practice, but it changes the tongue’s posture and the clarity of the sound. These differences in vowel shape don’t just affect the tongue — they influence how the whole mouth responds to the air.

There’s another consequence of using certain vowels — especially the French and Dutch “u” — that often goes unnoticed: the embouchure stays relaxed, but not so relaxed that the cheeks become unstable. The disadvantage of using vowels like the Spanish “u” or English “oo” is that the cheeks may become too relaxed. I’ve noticed that some students puff their cheeks slightly when articulating, especially with “t” or “k.” The air pushes outward, and if the cheeks aren’t engaged, they move with it — destabilizing the sides of the tongue and making articulation less precise.

American English adds another layer: it often involves diphthongs and a wide vowel palette, which can lead to looser embouchure habits. English speakers sometimes benefit from building more compact internal vowel shapes for clearer recorder tone and articulation. That said, British, American, and Australian English all bring different “musical accents” to the table.

Try this: without your recorder, say “oo,” and then the French “u” — or, if that’s tricky, say “ee” with the sliding-door trick — and feel what happens inside your mouth. Where does the tongue sit? How firm or loose are your cheeks? How active are the sides of the tongue?

Now play a long note on the recorder using each vowel shape. What changes? How agile is your tongue? What happens to the sound? How does it affect the agility of your tongue when you play several articulations on that same note?

Sometimes I shift vowel shape during a single note — from warmer to brighter — to add colour or direction. It’s subtle, but it adds life to the note. In fact, to think of vowels is just one way of thinking about the sound we shape. We can even let go of language entirely and simply feel where the sound resonates in the mouth.

Articulation

Just as we can shape vowels and tone colours by feeling where the sound resonates inside the mouth — without relying on spoken language — the consonants we use for articulation are simply tools. A “t,” “d,” or “k” is not meant to be pronounced aloud as we would in speech. It’s a label for tongue gestures. The real movement is quieter, smaller, and belongs to a continuous spectrum that runs from explosive articulation to the softest touch of the tongue.

Even consonants behave differently across languages. Spanish speakers often place their T and D against the teeth when talking — but for optimal articulation on the recorder, the tongue needs to touch further back, on the hard palate. Of course, tongues differ in size and shape, so the exact placement varies. The goal is always: efficiency without strain.

To help Spanish speakers, I often suggest they pronounce a tongue R, or — when the R turns out to be too soft — “a D on the spot where you would pronounce the R.” This gives them a stronger, cleaner release — and avoids the unclear, flattened articulation that sometimes creeps in. In 1707, Jacques Hotteterre, in his Principes de la flûte traversière, suggested tu-tu-ru to create subtle inequality in tonguing. At that time, the French r was still a rolled, tongue-based consonant — very similar to a soft “d.” The instruction wasn’t about saying a French word aloud, but about accessing a fluid, alternating movement in the tongue, creating a sense of nuanced inequality in the rhythm.

Dutch players, by contrast, often have a softer, less aspirated T than English speakers. This works beautifully for recorder — a clear but gentle interruption of the air. English speakers tend to have a more aspirated, noisy T, which can require some refinement. I often notice more “noisy tongue” habits in native English speakers, simply because of how the tongue functions in their everyday speech.

The key remains: articulation is a gesture, not a letter. The tongue should move gently away from the palate, not forcefully toward it. The best articulations feel silent when practiced without air — just a clean interruption, not an explosion.

Syllables from Speech: A History of Double Articulation

When historical treatises recommend syllables like tere, lere, tu-ru, or did’l, they are not giving us pronunciation guides. They’re giving tongue choreography from their own linguistic point of view — using familiar speech patterns to describe physical movements.

In 1535, Silvestro Ganassi recommended the syllable lere for double articulation in his treatise La Fontegara. It reflects not only the fluid nature of Italian speech, but also the open è vowel at its core. Try saying lere slowly, feeling how the vowel shapes the middle of the tongue — then try applying that same internal vowel shape on the recorder, using the sliding-door trick from earlier. Depending on your native language, this may feel natural — or almost impossible (as it is for my Dutch tongue).

In 1752, Johann Joachim Quantz suggested did’l in his Versuch einer Anweisung die Flöte traversiere zu spielen: a syllable well-suited to German, and also intuitively clear for many English speakers. Whereas for single tonguing he writes about T, D, and “tiri” (probably following the French tradition), this specific double-tonguing instruction shows how closely articulation practice was tied to familiar phonetic gestures.

Each writer drew on their own native speech to explain something physical. Tu-ru made sense for a French player in 1707. Did’l made sense for a German in 1752. What matters is not the syllable itself, but what it teaches the tongue to do.

In practice, I find the best double articulation syllable is the one that feels clean and easy for the student. Spanish and Italian speakers often prefer le-re, due to strong front-tongue control. Dutch players like me tend to favour te-ke, de-ge, or even ne-he — gestures rooted in our native use of the back tongue. German speakers lean toward did’l. And English speakers? It depends on the accent — many feel at home with either did’l or te-ke.

Ultimately, it’s not about syllables — it’s about sensation. Learning to alternate two regions of the tongue, in balance, with the air as the motor. I’ve seen students articulate beautifully without naming syllables at all. Some find too much focus on phonetics confusing, and in those cases I guide them purely through feeling: where the movement happens, how the air responds, and what the sound tells us.

Try this: Play a repeated note at a steady pulse and experiment with different internal syllables: te-ke, de-ge, did’l, le-re… or even a silent alternation of tongue regions without naming them. Notice which version feels smoothest, cleanest, most sustainable. The right gesture won’t just sound better — it will feel easier.

Language as a Pathway

What starts as syllables, vowels and consonants soon becomes something deeper — a feel for how the tongue moves, how the air speaks, and how the music flows through both. The recorder doesn’t ask us to speak — it asks us to listen. To the way our air moves. To the shape of our sound. And when we follow that sound with curiosity, even our native language becomes a companion — not a limit, but a guide.