NoFeeBoards.com!

I've been scrabbling around in what is, for me, largely unintelligible engineering stuff from dual's link. I've been struggling with some really recalcitrant students and ran across this, which seemed to help:

Closing Thoughts

So what if you have nothing to amplify? If you want to
build an amplifier -- DO IT!

Many years ago, I was at a rock concert. The opening act
was a single flute player standing solo in front of the closed
stage curtains. His job was to warm up the audience for the
high priced talent that was to follow. He was good.

But as he went along, the musical vibes got stranger and
stranger, then totally bizarre. He was playing chords on
his flute. Combined with utterly unbelievable riffs. Much
of the audience got impatient and bored at what seemed
like a bunch of gawd-awful squawks.

Then I happened to notice a friend beside me who had
both been in and taught concert band. He was literally on
the edge of his seat. He turned to me and slowly said "you
... can't ... do ... that ... with ... a ... flute".

Of the thousands and thousands of people in the theater
audience, at most only five realized they were witnessing a
once-in-a-lifetime performance of the absolute mastery of a
difficult and demanding instrument.

Always play for those five.

http://www.tinaja.com/glib/waywere.pdf

For those of us whose performances are not once-in-a-lifetime experiences:

"Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best."
-- Henry Van Dyke