This is the final article in my series about my Arts Council England ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ (DYCP) project entitled ‘learning to make a (hallmarked) silver natural trumpet in order to build skills, preserve specialist knowledge, rejuvenate a highly endangered craft, and develop as a musician and instrument maker’. This long title was inspired by the premise of Johann Joachim Quantz’s

As a musician, I have some sense of what it takes to practise and gradually refine a difficult skill, and perhaps this has shaped how I approach learning new ones. I try not to get discouraged by difficulty; in fact, I often find a task all the more motivating and engaging because of it. In the words of the travel writer and comedian, Michael Palin (2019), ‘the more difficult somewhere is to get

It was while I was studying at the Royal Northern College of Music that I first became interested in playing the natural trumpet. I seem to be attracted to learning new (often difficult) skills, and my approach with the trumpet was to pick the most difficult music I could possibly find, namely J. S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major (BWV 1047), and gradually learn to play it. I was ready

It can sometimes be difficult to find an inventive way to start writing an article—I believe writers refer to their initial angle as an ‘in’. Writer’s block seems particularly strong, in my experience, when I am attempting to document something that has been particularly enjoyable, impressive, or formative. In such cases I hope to illustrate my enjoyment through a well-written account in order