Most of my students are adults who lead busy lives, but are determined to become the musician they dreamed of being. A lot is said about the difficulty of learning an instrument (or other type of skill) as an adult, but one thing is clear: Life gets in the way. It’s not easy to stay diligent with practice when you’ve got work and bills and kids and stress and the whole host of distractions that adult life throws at you.

Low-hanging fruit

The expression “low-hanging fruit” is something I say often when talking to my students. Why climb to the top of the tree when there’s a nice apple ripe for the picking within arms’ reach? There are ways that you can grow as a musician without spending much extra time. It’s so easy, in fact, that some may find it hard to believe that it’s really helping. I’ve seen the results, however. These techniques work!

1. Make playlists and channels of the music you want to learn

You must listen to the songs, pieces, genres, you wish to learn. Sounds like common sense, right? I’ve known many musicians who want to learn to play a particular piece or style and they just don’t listen to recordings of it. In my experience the prime offenders have been classical musicians. Why? Perhaps it’s because it’s possible to play complete pieces from sheet music without having to reference a recording. The music is not on the page! Those are just instructions.
Playlists are your friend. Call it “Music Mastery” and add whatever you’re working on or want to learn in the future. You want to learn jazz? Listen to jazz every day. Long commutes to work? Hit those channels and you’ll be improving as a musician with no extra time spent.

2. Get an ear-training app and USE IT EVERYDAY

There are a host of ear-training apps for iOS and Android, many of them free to download. Try some out. Search “ear training” or “music interval training”. Many of them make a game of training and testing your ability to hear and identify musical intervals and chords. It’s practically a game. Take 5 minutes each day for this. It’ll do more for you in the time it usually takes to check Facebook. You can also find ear-training exercises on the web at http://www.musictheory.net/exercises.