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Exploration & Experimentation:

A presentation of a model brass instrument and methods of construction

By Liam Goodman Ricklin

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What was my initial idea and why is it important to me? To the world?

I really enjoy music, and was interested in exploring more about how instruments are made, and other aspects of music beyond typical instrumental musical instructions. I was interested in the idea that innovation in art defines characteristics of culture and I like building and making things so I decided to experiment with building a brass musical instrument of my own.

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Where does my project currently stand?

I’ve successfully made prototypes that play notes, and learned a lot. Here is a video demonstration of what I’ve been able to compile and create:

My project has culminated in a greater understanding of music, technical skills required for metal working, fabricating technology, and the fundamentals of engineering and materials sciences involved in constructing an instrument, and greater intellectual curiosity

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These are some of the parts I used.

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What will I do next?

Next I’d like to:

Try comparing tubes of the same length, but with varying diameters
Add some kind of keys

and/or valves to increase

the number of pitches they

can play

Try making some

mouthpieces of different

sizes and shapes

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What was the hardest failure in my project?

Time management
Understanding how to effectively break down the steps
Trying to take a fun more intuitive exploration of the art of sound, and make it into something that can fit in a rubric felt impossible. It was difficult to take something so big and amorphous and extract bullet points that effectively convey the value of this learning in a format that feels incompatible with the organic experiential art experience I participated in. It was difficult to turn everything into a format I can share with other people instead of having a purely personal learning experience

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What was my biggest learning lesson?

Strangers who are experts are happy to help students who want to learn more about doing the things the experts do. It felt crazy that I could just GO to a trumpet factory and someone took hours to walk me through every step of the process and design and answer ALL of my questions.

At the factory, it was surprising to learn that they are the only place that’s innovating manufacturing techniques for old fashioned instruments, and so much of it was using technology and skills that I’ve had experience with at Summit. I was better prepared to understand what they were doing than I could have imagined. It gave me greater confidence in my ability to meaningfully integrate learning from multiple disciplines to investigate and innovate in this discipline….and to not take it quite so seriously.

It’s okay to not even WANT to be the best at things, learning for learnings sake, and that enjoying experiencing art and making things doesn’t need to lead to a ground-breaking conclusion in order to have worth and be a meaningful experience.

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What part of my project am I most proud of?

How much I was really able to learn
I really wasn’t expecting how complex brass instruments are, but I learned how they work anyway

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What would I change about my project?

I would’ve put more time in
I would have liked to have figured out a way to add more pitches to one prototype, but it’s beyond what I had the time and ability to learn to do this year

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How did remote learning and the Pandemic change my project?

I wasn’t able to leave the house to go shopping for any additional materials
I wasn’t able to access all of our tools, or workspace in the art studio
I didn’t feel like I could connect with experts, or ask our friends who are really good makers to help with cool specific tools and techniques for doing things like cutting tubes, drilling holes in metal, etc

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How has Pinnacle changed my mindset about my topic and work?

I have a better understanding of my personal limitations for managing projects like this, I feel like I should say I would do a bunch of things differently, but I’m pretty sure if I were to start over, I’d really just do things pretty much exactly the same.