Have been practising the violin for a bit of late. Maybe I’ve picked it up some 4-5 times in the last week or so. And some twelve years after I stopped formal lessons it is still a lot of fun.
And as I practice I discover that I don’t find it too much fun playing songs, stuff for which someone else has written the notes. What I prefer is alaap/raga. Fix an up-scale and a down-scale (sometimes it might correspond to actually existing ragas, but I don’t care to check. And I don’t name my ragas). And just play, making up the notes as you go along. While making sure you don’t violate the rules of the raga that you’ve set for yourself.
Immense fun can result. I don’t think I’ve ever had this kind of fun trying to play something someone else wrote.