the chiseling muscles. It was about developing the eye to know when the cutting edge was perpendicular. It was about realizing that the pencil line you scribed is outside where you want to saw and that the cut itself is wider than the sawblade - and by how much. It was about making knowledge instinct.

I still use the five-minute dovetail exercise every day. I don’t actually cut a dovetail everyday, but I do use little exercises to re-aquaint myself with tasks or motions I haven’t done in a while or to make myself familiar with the demands of something new. I also use it just to stay limber. To keep the rust off so I don’t tighten up, doubt myself, make a mistake while making an instrument.

In that way, making an instrument is a lot like playing an instrument. To perform a piece of music you practice the difficult parts over and over until you are comfortable enough to incorporate them into a performance. But to perform the difficult passages at all you still need to practice the fundamentals. You play scales, chord progressions, whatever. Things that you know well, things that you rush