Projection

[david_h]

My understanding of the terms is that projection is making yourself more audible at a distance than your loudness would normally achieve.

I sometimes get to hear a local musician/singer who when singing solo is incredibly audible without sounding loud or 'operatic' and can clearly be heard 'through' rather than 'over' a community choir that she directs at rehearsal. I end up thinking physics. My hunches include: putting the energy into the harmonics that are most audible in that acoustic environment ? Putting the energy into a very narrow frequency band ? Precise and prompt shaping of the volume and frequency profile as the tune moves from note to note ? Note by note intonation choices ? Certainly getting the vowel sounds and enunciation spot-on, but the last is not relevant to fluting.

Working the environment acoustics and the listeners psycho-acoustics. On top of all the diaphragm support stuff etc. I'm guessing that, whatever it is, it is what the Kevin Crawfords of this world do also.

I don't believe this singing to the moon stuff any more than I believe that long tones work by magic - even if they seem to do just that.

[rama]

Yes, exactly! Pick another planet, or pick another star, and then deliver your tone all the way to there, way out there!...

And, you'll still have a full range of tonal "colors" at your command, from bright to dark.

Not a bad deal, eh?

i contacted mars last night with my flute. later, i saw little green men around my bed with baseball bats and rope...

[Julia Delaney]

I'd like to know how to tune my flute like a piece of cake.

[Rob Sharer]

I could give a many-layered response, but I'm afraid of a frosty reception.

Rob

[Denny]

only works on keyless ones

makes the pads stick it does

[Liney Bear]

Playing sharp is what bad players do and *think* they're projecting. There is never a legitimate reason to play an Irish flute out of tune, given the extensive amount of control we have over pitch

I'm confused.

That makes two of us.

[Julia Delaney]

Three, my brother.

[Denny]

what an odd thing....

we don't agree on much around here

[Akiba]

I could give a many-layered response, but I'm afraid of a frosty reception.

Rob

OK, Rob, I'll take the bait...how about just a single-layered response, or a Reader's Digest version? I promise to only be slightly frosty myself, though I would not be surprised to be in total agreement.

Jason

[Cork]

Aw, it's good fer any wind instrument.....including voice.

Back in the 70s I was working in a warehouse, big warehouse. Ma stopped by to take me to lunch. The men in the front offered to send someone out to find me. When she quit laughing, she called my name, once, I answered from the far corner.
Oberlin, four year vocal scholarship. The men in the front were never the same.

It seems that your mom had it right!

Projection is not magic, but it really is a profound experience. It has nothing to do with vibrato, per se, and nothing at all to do with playing out of tune, indeed, nothing to do with any "trick" devised.

The better flute players have it, and apparently the better vocalists have it, too.

On flute, projection could happen when the flute becomes the instrument of its player.

That is, straight from the heart, or from wherever, the music comes from within!

[talasiga]

david_h, I really liked your post above and the way you epigraphed with the McGee excerpt.
Re. a couple of your questions, I feel that, coming as I do from a non operatic but very penetrating audible tradition, "nasality" is a part of the answer.

I hear this nasality in Ireland and not only sean nos.

[david_h]

It occured to me after making that post that it could be a case of being loud (in terms of energy) without sounding loud (how we percieve it, the unpleasant bits of 'loud'). Maybe like the way people are said to be in danger of damaging their ears by their headphones being louder than they realise because the sound is so clear.

[tin tin]

It occured to me after making that post that it could be a case of being loud (in terms of energy) without sounding loud (how we percieve it, the unpleasant bits of 'loud').

Yes--the word I've heard used to describe this is velocity, as in speed of the airstream. It doesn't take a tremendously strong airstream to get the column of air vibrating in the flute, thus producing tone. But a really vibrant, lively tone comes when there's some real speed to the airstream leaving the player. This doesn't have to be a loud tone, just a high quality one, and that lends itself to good projection at all volume levels.

[jiminos]

meditative projection classes begin promptly at now o'clock in the planetary sun room, immediately adjacent the moonflower plant. all students are required to provide their own mantra. no instructors will be present. they will all be in the pub on Grafton Street. it is expected that students will project sufficiently to be heard over anticipated choruses of Black Velvet Band and ... of course... Black and Tans to be sung by unknowing american tourists out on a pub crawl. those unable to tonally project sufficiently, please feel free to join instructors at the pub where you can project your failures on to the backs of unsuspecting tourists and non-projecting whistle players.



be well,

jim

[crookedtune]

I could give a many-layered response, but I'm afraid of a frosty reception.

Rob

OK, Rob, I'll take the bait...how about just a single-layered response, or a Reader's Digest version? I promise to only be slightly frosty myself, though I would not be surprised to be in total agreement.

Jason

Don't ask him to project it out of the park. Rob was only gonna Bundt.