Children learn instruments because someone makes them. Adults learn because they want to, which is a better reason, and a few habits make it far more likely to stick.

Practise a little every day rather than a lot at the weekend. Fifteen focused minutes, most days, will take you further than two hours on Sunday, because skills settle between sessions.

Choose music you love, even if it is too hard at first. Simplify it, slow it down, learn it in pieces. The motivation to play the song you care about will carry you through the scales.

Find someone to play for, or with. A teacher, a friend, a beginners’ group: a small audience turns practice into something with a purpose.

And be patient with yourself. You will sound terrible for a while, and then one evening, without warning, you will play something all the way through and it will sound like music.