-Play something you know in a different key than you know it in. If you know Lilting Banshee in A-Dorian, play it in G-Dorian. Or if you know Calliope house in D, try it in E. Or if you know Kilnamona Barndance in D or G, then play it in F like Martin Hayes does.
-"Sing" a measure or phrase, then play the next phrase. Alternate this all the way through the tune. Sing, lilt, hum, or sound out. You can even silently imagine the sound of the phrase in your head, then play the next phrase on your instrument. Then do the reverse. The next time through play the parts you sang or imagined the previous time, and sing or imagine the parts that you played.
-Do the opposite. If the tune is normally fast, then play it very slow. If a tune is normally slow, then play it super fast. Play a reel with a very swung, bouncy, dotted feel, and play a hornpipe as ramrod straight as possible.
-Quiet/Loud. Play measures 1 through 4 as quietly as possible, then measures 5 through 8 as loudly as possible. Then play measures 1 through 4 loudly and measures 5 through 8 quietly. Then play from quiet to loud, gradually building to a crescendo. Then play from loud to quiet gradually back down from the crescendo.
-Try playing a tune with the em-PHAH-sis in a different place than you normally play it. If you normally emphasize beats 1 and 3, then emphasize beats 2 and 4. Something like that.
-Simplify/Complicate. Try to simplify a tune as much as possible by removing notes. What is the least amount of notes you can play and have it still sound like St. Anne's Reel or Temperance Reel? Then go back to the original arrangement of the tune and add more notes, like everywhere there's a quarter note insert a triplet.
-Deconstruct and rebuild a tune. Similar to the exercise above, but in this case you remove every up stroke in the tune and just leave the quarter note down strokes. Then replace the notes you removed with different notes to come up with an alternate version of the tune.
-Approximate a tune on the spot. Find a tune on Jonathan Lay's Trailjams.org site that you don't know that well or at all and listen to it three times through. As soon as the music stops playing, start playing your own improvised version of the tune by making it up on the spot. Try and play it at the same speed with the same number of measures, same number of parts, and so on.
-Play a tune increasingly fast until it becomes way too fast, then keep going. Use a metronome that can gradually speed up, like the one on Strum Machine, and set it to increase by 5 BPM each time you repeat the tune. Where will you top out at? 120BPM?!!!
-Economy of motion, micro movements, as light as possible. Try and play the tune with as little movement as possible. Keep your fingers as close to the frets as possible, keep your picking hand moving as little as possible, hold the pick as lightly as possible, get all tension out of your body. Just try and play with the absolute best economy of motion you can possibly do.
-Smile, facial expression. Take a video of yourself playing. Are you smiling and engaging with an imaginary group of fellow musicians in a light-hearted and friendly manner, or are you making a frowning and/or "I'm trying too hard/concentrating too hard" type of face? Relax your facial muscles and intentionally smile while you play.
-Play the melodic rhythm of a tune by clapping it out with your hands. Or get some drum sticks and a drum pad and play it that way. What I mean is play the sound of the melody with rhythm only. This will help you get the feel of the rhythm into your body.
-Play a tune you know on a different instrument. If you know it on mandolin, try hammering out the melody on piano. This will get your ear working.
-Play ornaments and embellishments EVERYWHERE. Whatever type of ornament or grace note you might be working on...take a tune you like and try and put this embellishment into the tune in as many places as you possibly can. Way more than you would ever actually do when playing the tune normally. This will help you pick and choose when the time comes.
-25 minute transcription exercise. Set a timer on your phone for 25 minutes. Grab your instrument plus a pencil and paper and find a tune on Jonathan Lay's Trailjams.org site that you aren't that familiar with. Don't look at the notation until the timer goes off. For the first twenty-five minutes just listen and try to play along. Write down the names of the notes you are playing in whatever means you know how to transcribe or write out music. At the end of the 25 minutes check your work. The notation on trailjams.org exactly matches the audio so it's a great way to compare your aural skills to the written notes. This will really help your ear!
-One last one. If you had to play through a piece of music with your music teacher right now, which sections would you be most concerned about screwing up? That's what you need to work on. Identify those problem spots and come up with your own solutions for how to fix them!
That might be more than ten! Sorry.
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