Play with your favorite music

Guitar players do this a lot, but you can also do this method with any instrument. What you should be doing daily is to play as if you were a member of your favorite band, you listen to the song and start jaming along, first it is recomended that you try to replicate what your favorite guitar, piano, vocal, violin, etc. player does, you should be replicating the rithm, the harmony, chords, notes, and then you should try to replicate how the instrument sounds, such as dynamics (volume), is the instrument being played soft or hard? is one note after the other being played with sustain? or stacato? you should be trying this by ear. Do not be to hard with yourself, start one note at a time, with time you will get better, and in this part of the process you are doing ear training which is really important for music, if you get your brain burned too much, you can change the process and go to youtube for a tutorial on how to play that song, just so your brain doesn’t get too tired, and bored because of the hard work.

A great tip to know is: what you practice should always be hard for your brain but not too hard, the brain learns better when it is entretained, and when you are pushing it a bit to the limit, but not making the practice session so hard that it gets frustrating, by not enjoying the practice session your brain will not learn as fast.

After you learn the song you like, you can now try to jam along with the band, as if you were another member of the band, you can then start exploring a bit, now you are working also with your creative side, but still trying to replicate some of the song you like.

I think this is one of the most important methods for any musician, because you are learning to sound like the music you like, and you can figure out better why is it that you like that song so much, what happens when, how is it being played, what chord goes after the other, and its really fun because you are still listening the song you like, and if its fun your brain will learn faster, you are practicing ear training also, and you are training your brain memory which is also very important for music.