Projections

The trick to doing anything well involves more than just technique and practice—it involves mental conditioning and psychological preparation. The key idea behind all these is that of projection, or the way in which one uses imagination to literally be the role in which one is supposed to be playing.

Let's start with a very simple example. Suppose one is playing the flute, and wants to play a high note. The straightforward way of doing it is to just play the high note based on the learnt techniques. This is not a bad idea per se, but then the note will seem to be lacking some flavour, and some might describe it as being "out of the blue". Now, suppose that the high note in contention is really a part of a musical phrase that mimics the voice of an opera singer. Then, it is more "natural" to imagine that one's instrument is really the opera singer's voice, and with that, the resulting tone played tends to have a subtly different feel to it, and matches a little bit more closely to the intent of the composer.

The reasons surrounding this idea of projection may not be completely grounded in pure scientific theory, but an idea on why this works could be explained through the use of the fact that the imagination of the role that one is supposed to play helps prime the body to react accordingly at the subconscious level. It might not work for everyone, but nonetheless it is a good thing to try out if one wants to exceed one's current abilities.

Part of psychology is that if you convince yourself enough that you can do it, you will end up being able to do it.