Listening is a very important skill and even more so to the musician. You can learn a lot from hearing someone else play a piece that you are learning, and we all know that listening to music can move you emotionally.
In music exams, these listening skills are tested and I go through the requirements for each grade before the exam so the student knows what to expect. This means clapping the beat to a piece of music, working out how many beats there are in a bar, singing back a phrase, spotting the diference in pitch or rhythm in a melody, identifying different features in a piece of music and so on. The basic fundaments of music are rhythm and pitch and we can practise them to improve our awareness of them.
Rhythm
Rhythm is fundamental to all music. It's really important to be able to 'feel' the pulse or beat so that the music can be 'organised' from a group of sounds into a recognisable pattern or melody.
There's a fantastic resource online called 'Beat Goes On'. During Lockdown, Ollie Tunmer, released daily 20 minute videos of himself in his spare room teaching rhythms to anyone watching. He is a body percussionist and you will see why if you watch him! Here is a sample of what he does - https://youtu.be/u7wCxPIPr6c
There is plenty of material on his You Tube channel so get slapping and tapping and feel that beat! It will help to make you a great musician and possibly a good dancer too!
Pitch
Improving your sense of pitch is important for singing and also helps your playing if you can imagine the note in your mind. Simply singing along to songs on the radio or TV can help you to perfect this, particularly if you pay attention to where the sound is coming from in your throat as you sing. You can check your pitch by playing a note on a musical instrument and singing it back.