Experience is gained by playing songs, and the amount of base experience is determined by 3 factors:
- Song length: Longer songs will give more XP, but the XP-per-minute is the same whether playing a short song or a long song.
- Difficulty played: Easy, Medium, Hard, Expert, or Brutal
- Stars Earned: Earn more stars to get more XP. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, or Gold-Star
Opportunities for bonus XP include:
- Playing a Rivals Challenge song for the first time in a week. You'll see a Play-symbol with a plus sign next to eligible songs when scrolling through the song list.
- Playing a song other members of your Crew have played during a Rivals Challenge week. You'll need to join a Crew first, but you'll see a group-of-people-icon next to the song name.
- Social Bonus: Play with other people, either locally or through Online Quickplay
- Full Combo: Hit every note in the song to get a Full Combo bonus.
The amount of XP each activity and bonus awards has been adjusted multiple times since the XP system was introduced, and as such I'm not going to put exact values here, but the best general advice I can give is:
- Don't worry too much about this achievement: You'll get this on your way to other achievements
- Play on the highest difficulty you can do well at. As of this writing, you get more XP from getting 4 stars on an Expert than 5 stars on Hard.
- Play with friends when possible. Whether this is playing songs your Crew has played in the current Rivals challenge, playing Online Quickplay, or playing locally, these activities all give a bonus XP multiplier.