This text presents an approach to playing and teaching brass instruments that is based on the fundamental skills of good listening and good respiratory practices. It emphasizes the importance of developing these and other traditional skills—such as embouchure development, articulation, tone quality, range and stamina—through musical ideas rather than isolating individual muscular behavior. Careful attention is paid to the natural way in which learning takes place in other skills and shows how such processes may be applied to learning to play a brass instrument.