I appreciate all of the replies to my "I can't Screech" thread, and here is
the outcome:

Thinking that perhaps I'd put no points into my Brass skill (which seemed
hard for me to believe), I ran to Qeynos and discussed the matter with our
trainer there. Although he wouldn't tell me how many points I'd put into
the skill, he wanted cash to raise it further. Now I'm used to that meaning
that there were already a few points in that skill, but perhaps a skill that
I gained several levels ago that I had not practiced still might require
cash to raise. So I paid him a few gold and put about four points into the
skill. Then I ran over to the PvP area of Qeynos and fired up DDD with a
HORN equipped. Whatdya know, it started playing the animation and
increasing. My first increase was to (35), however, not 5 or so. At level
26, that may be the baseline skill level regardless of my practice level
though...

SO. What this means is, either there was some bug that had caused my Brass
skill to halt its increasing that I fixed by putting another couple of
points into Brass OR I'd never put any points into it. Either way I suppose
I'm happy. I got to stand in the newbie zone playing Screech and watch the
rats and snakes ping pong off of me for an hour or so.

Crier Sharpsong - 26th song bard on Fennin Ro