My mother, after walking into a large warehouse and finding that I was “somewhere in the back”. Two running forklifts, a couple of trucks at the dock.
She called, I answered. The rest of the warehouse never got over “that old girl that does something with computers”.
Naw…it’s not scientific.
Yeah…she did college on an opera scholarship.
Sure, we’re not ventriloquists, but all the factors Guinness mentions influence how well one’s sound projects, so projection seems like a decent term to summarize those factors. My point is, whatever one calls it, it’s not the same as just volume, because it’s possible to project well at low volumes, and it’s also possible to project poorly while blasting away.
I can hear myself play in the session but everybody says they can’t hear me at all. I consider that a blessing since I’m so bad. I have a rudall-style flute.
The better flute player in our session can be heard above everyone just fine. I don’t know how to get my flute to do that. He can get my flute to do that but not me.
With only a few exceptions, the “loudest” flutes I’ve ever heard in sessions (the ones you can hear from several blocks down the street, clearly through the din of fiddles, accordions, and pipes) were all Rudalls or Rudall style flutes. Hammy Hamilton playing his own flute is one of the exceptions that comes to mind, and there are a few others.
The key is to work on developing a focused embouchure. If you’ve got a big garden hose you can dump a lot of water on the ground in a hurry. That’s volume. But if you squeeze the end of the hose so it’s nearly closed, the water will come out much more powerfully and will travel a longer distance. That’s focus. Way, way too many flute players buy a large-holed Pratten stye flute and brag about how loud their flute is. But their tone is so unfocused that all the decibels in the world can’t help them.
The other day I chanced to get some spare time to practice, but in a small car with the windows closed. Painful on the ears, but I also chanced to have some earplugs - industrial ones designed to stop almost everything. It is amazing just how much that is heard when playing the flute must be going in through the mouth and resonating in head cavities. I wonder how much that has to do with the difference between what the player and the listener hears. And how backpressure (or whatever it is) effects that. Had me thinking back to a discussion from last year about possible mechanisms by which tuning the vocal tract can influence tone generation. And the one about wide-brimmed hats.
A metal plate in the player’s head can sometimes be used to enhance resonance.
Thanks, Brad, for your re-emphasis on the importance of “Focus” in projecting sound. By the way, do you have any practice tips on how to improve one’s “Focus”?
Paul
Way, way too many flute players buy a large-holed Pratten stye flute and brag about how loud their flute is. But their tone is so unfocused that all the decibels in the world can’t help them.
so terribly true.
most don’t have anything worth hearing.
trying playing well enough so that the others drop the volume to hear what you’re doing.
Do fife players worry about being heard?
If I may I’ll try to redirect this thread. 
We’ve discussed Pratten’s sound being fat and Rudall’s being focused before (numerous times).
I’m not talking about VOLUME!
The Healy and McGee Metzler have an intrinsic tone characteristic that is easily discerned under my ear. Thus allowing me to more easily adjust: pitch, attack, and phrasing.
Anyone else experience this phenomenon?
P.S. I.D.10-t - If a fifer is playing in a forest. Can you hear a tree fall? 
I was expecting pitch, attack and color…
Hey Denny,
My music is still stuck in monochrome, I haven’t progressed to color yet!
But you are more concise that I. I was simply thinking of the way I play the music and phrasing jumped to mind.
All the Best!
Well, you got a few replies that were on topic, about being able to hear yourself better on one flute than another…wish I could add to that, since I’ve had many flutes to compare also, like you, but I play solo most all the time.
But there have to be more people out there who have tried different flutes under noisy conditons, and have found one flute easier to hear than another, even if it wasn’t their own? Hugh, you out there?
One flute that I will suggest as being a good candidate would be a Murray-which has a very distinctive tone, and although I didn’t play mine along with anyone, I believe it might have been easy (or easier) to hear above the din too.
There’s probably some general characteristic to the makeup of the notes played on your two flutes that makes you able to hear them better-wasn’t Terry McGee referring to some program that could analyse the “tonal color” or similar makeup of each note played? I’m not much for the scientific end of it myself, but people were talking about high partials and such. Would that be related to your question?
Also, from what some have said-it seems player dependent also, what you can hear or not in a noisy environment, so some flutes should be better for some and not for others, and then some (think it was Gordon) said that he could hear his Hammy as well as his Hernon, and you know that they are like night and day, those two flutes in tonal qualities.
Perhaps I’m suggesting something obvious, but - beyond flute makes and how loudly you, individually, can play, there are many factors, session to session, that affect how well you hear yourself, and/or whether others hear you - where you’re sitting, the acoustics and size of the room, the frequency range of other instruments and your proximity to them on a given night, how crowded the pub is, etc. - the list of variables is potentially endless.
As Barry mentioned above, I play a Hammy (Pratten) and it cut in almost every situation (both by my ears, and for others), and so does the Hernon (Rudall) I’ve recently taken on as my ‘main’ flute - not as boomy, but bright and powerful. But so did the anonymous German flute I started out with - clearly a “quieter” flute - unless I sat directly beside a piper, or the room was too big, etc. In any given, physical, situation, all of these flutes level of audibility (is that a word?) changed. Moving helps, if you can’t hear where you’re sitting. Not having too many other fluters helps. Sitting where there are walls, or an adjascent corner, for sound to bounce back at you helps. Not having piano accordians or an excess of pipers, fiddlers or whistles also helps. Smaller sessions with a good mix of separate instruments helps. In short, flutes have a range of frequency that, when well played, should cut well enough in most situations for you to hear yourself, and for most others to hear you.
Unless it’s otherwise too noisy. Keep in mind that part of the point behind cuts, yips and barks that flute players add to their playing, beyond maintaining a rhythmic pulse, is to be heard over instruments that don’t do those things. 