JamBuddy/docs/learn-curriculum.md

Learn Curriculum — Intermediate, Jam-Ready Players

Research-backed training repertoire for the Learn section. Companion to GOAL.md Part 2. Audience: players who know the basics and can survive a jam — the goal is making them better in the jam. Not beginner material.

Across guitar, piano, and bass pedagogy the intermediate→advanced jump converges on four pillars: instrument liberation (play anything anywhere), playing the changes (chord-tone awareness), ensemble skills (space, register, pocket), and functional ears (hearing 1-5-6-4). The per-instrument curricula below feed both the Learn UI and the knowledgebase (see docs/kb-plan.md).

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Guitar

Skill taxonomy (rough order)

Tier A — Fretboard liberation

1. CAGED system fluency — locate any chord in 5 places instantly (Fretboard Logic, Pickup Music)
2. Triads on string sets — major/minor triads + inversions on strings 1-3, 2-4, 3-5 (Justin Guitar Grade 5, Leavitt Vol. 2)
3. Connecting pentatonic boxes — the box 2↔3 seam is the documented weak point
4. Scale-over-chord mapping — seeing the chord inside the scale shape

Tier B — Playing the changes 5. Chord-tone / target-note soloing — land on a chord tone on beat 1 of each change 6. Guide tones (3rds & 7ths) — the 7th of one chord resolves to the 3rd of the next 7. Phrasing across positions

Tier C — Ensemble skills 8. Comping with small triad voicings — stay out of the vocalist's/keys' register 9. Internal time — metronome on beats 2 & 4, then no click (Tomo Fujita's core emphasis) 10. Ear-led playing — "let your ears lead you instead of your eyes" (Fujita)

Tier D — Functional ears 11. Progression recognition by ear — track the bass line first 12. Modal awareness — how Dorian/Mixolydian overlap shapes you already know 13. Transcribing & daily riff-writing — the recurring plateau fix

Top drills

1. Triad voice-leading over 12-bar blues — only close triads on one string set; on every change move each finger to the nearest note of the next triad. Forces inversions + minimal-motion voice leading at once.
2. One-CAGED-position soloing — improvise using only one grip's chord tones + surrounding scale notes; shift position each chorus. Welds chord, arpeggio, and scale into one visual unit.
3. Target-note drill — first note after each chord change must be the 3rd (then 7ths, then 7th→3rd resolutions); pentatonic filler in between. Pure pentatonic playing suddenly "follows the changes".
4. Pentatonic seam drill — ascend box 1, exit through a named seam note into box 2, etc. Shifts become melodic destinations.
5. Metronome on 2 & 4 — click as the snare backbeat; progress to click once per bar, then none.
6. Comping ladder — comp behind a recorded soloist using only 3-string triads above fret 5, varying rhythm/dynamics, never register-clashing.
7. Daily progression dictation — 10-15 min naming I-IV-V vs vi-IV-I-V vs ii-V-I from songs, bass line first.

Sources

Fretboard Logic (Bill Edwards) · Justin Guitar Grades 4–6 · Tomo Fujita Accelerate Your Guitar Playing (Berklee) · Leavitt A Modern Method for Guitar Vol. 2 · Absolutely Understand Guitar · Pickup Music CAGED pathway · fundamental-changes.com (guide tones) · TrueFire (box connection, plateaus) · Premier Guitar "Rhythm Rules" · zotzinguitarlessons.com (triads in 12 keys) · ToneGym / tonedear.com · stringshock.com & jazzguitartoday.com (jam etiquette)

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Piano / Keys

Skill taxonomy (rough order)

Tier 1 — Harmonic vocabulary

1. Triad inversions in all 12 keys — grab any chord near the current hand position
2. Voice leading — minimum-distance inversion choice; the biggest "amateur → pro" jump
3. Shell voicings (root–3–7) — light, clear, gateway to comping (Open Studio, PianoGroove)
4. Sus2/sus4/add9 colors and slash chords — pop/worship vocabulary
5. Rootless voicings — Type A (3-5-7-9), Type B (7-9-3-5); top note between C4–C5

Tier 2 — Rhythm & ensemble role 6. Comping rhythms — Charleston, reverse Charleston, Red Garland pattern, anticipations 7. Register discipline — LH stays above ~G3 when a bassist is present 8. Density discipline ("rule of 1") — in a 5-piece band, play 1/5 of the music 9. Hand-role splitting — LH harmony/groove anchor, RH color and answers

Tier 3 — Functional/ear skills 10. Thinking in numbers (Nashville Number System / Roman numerals) 11. Progression recognition by ear — bass line + emotional flow of each degree 12. Transposition fluency — known songs in all 12 keys via the number method 13. Sight-comping — realize an unfamiliar lead sheet at tempo (Berklee keyboard method)

Tier 4 — Bandstand 14. Form-keeping under pressure — never lose bar 1 15. Improvising over changes — chord tones → pentatonics → scale tones 16. Repertoire in 2-3 keys from memory

Top drills

1. Voice-led progression loop in 12 keys — I–V–vi–IV with minimum hand movement (C → G/B → Am → F/A), through the circle of fifths. Self-grading: you can see and hear when you jump.
2. Shell ii–V–I cycle — root+3+7 through all keys, alternating types so 3rds/7ths swap and resolve by half-step. The core voice-leading mechanic made physical.
3. Charleston metronome ladder — one syncopation pattern to automaticity at 80→160 BPM; comping failure in jams is usually rhythmic, not harmonic.
4. Backing-track subtraction — chorus 1 whole notes only; chorus 2 LH only above G3, no roots; chorus 3 RH colors only; chorus 4 two hits per bar. Simulates bandmates occupying frequency space.
5. Bass-line ear training — hum the bass note of each chord in a pop song, convert to numbers, play it.
6. One song, twelve keys — number-chart a known song, new key daily.
7. Cold lead-sheet sight-comping — slow metronome, once through the form, never stopping. Rehearses the actual jam failure mode.

Sources

Berklee Online Keyboard Method · Mark Levine The Jazz Piano Book · Open Studio Piano Pathway · PianoGroove (rootless voicings, comping) · The Jazz Piano Site (jam prep) · Piano With Jonny (voicings, transposing) · Jens Larsen (comping rhythms) · Pianote (band guide, NNS) · Worship Online / Musicademy / Sweetwater (band role) · ToneDear / ToneGym / Musical U / trainear.com (ear training)

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Bass

Skill taxonomy (rough order)

1. Fretboard zone mastery — every note to fret 12, lines through each zone (Friedland)
2. Root-fifth-octave vocabulary — the "safe but musical" jam fallback
3. Chord-tone fluency — R-3-5-7 of maj/min/dom/m7♭5 anywhere (TalkingBass: chord tones before scales)
4. Scale-tone vs chord-tone discrimination — outline on strong beats, connect on weak
5. Approach-note technique — chromatic from above/below, W|H|H walkup, dominant approach
6. Walking bass construction — root on 1, chord tones on 1 & 3, approach into the next root on 4
7. Subdivision command — straight 8ths / swing / shuffle / 16th funk, switching mid-groove
8. Pocket / drummer lock — kick matching, ghost notes, dynamic mirroring
9. Functional ear training — root movement, I/IV/V/vi by function
10. Real-time harmonic prediction — the V "pushes home", reacting within one pass of the form
11. Dynamics, touch, space — most cited intermediate→pro separator
12. Fills and form awareness — fills at bars 4/8 phrase boundaries

Top drills

1. Root-only song stripping — play only the root of each change by ear; add 5ths and octaves on later passes. Strips songs to harmonic skeleton.
2. Arpeggiate the progression — R-3-5(-7) over I-V-vi-IV in several keys, then inversions, then other neck zones.
3. W|H|H chromatic walkup — between chords a 4th apart: root, whole, half, half (C-D-E♭-E→F). Formulaic forward motion that telegraphs the next chord.
4. Walking 12-bar / 1-6-2-5 loop — a decision every beat about chord vs passing tone (Friedland, SBL 5-step formula).
5. 2-bar loop challenge — one groove for 5+ minutes changing only tone/dynamics/note length. Pocket training; exposes drift.
6. Subdivision switching — 2 bars 8ths / 2 bars 16ths at 60-80 BPM; click on 2&4 only; mute the click 4 bars and check.
7. Sing-then-play root movement — sing the roots before touching the bass, then 3rds/5ths/7ths.

Sources

Scott's Bass Lessons (Players Path, Groove Trainer) · TalkingBass Chord Tone Essentials · Ed Friedland Building Walking Bass Lines · Hal Leonard Bass Method · Berklee Practice Method: Bass · Bass Musician Magazine (drummer lock) · Premier Guitar (jam survival) · StudyBass · Learn Jazz Standards · Jazz Night School (chromatic 4) · onlinebasscourses.com · Functional Ear Trainer

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How the app supports this (detection-powered training)

These map to GOAL.md L1–L4; the app's unfair advantage is that it hears the player.

1. Target-note highlighting — on each detected chord change, flash the new chord's 3rd/7th on the fretboard/piano (guitar drill 3, piano drill 2). Later: score whether the first detected note after the change was a chord tone.
2. Voice-leading coach (piano view) — highlight the nearest inversion to the previous chord, common tones marked "hold"; score total semitone travel per progression.
3. Next-chord preview tier (bass) — when a loop is detected, highlight the upcoming chord's root plus its chromatic approach notes a half-step above/below — the walking-line scaffold, one beat ahead.
4. Progression ear-trainer on your own jam — hide the chord banner, ask for the numbers (vi-IV-I-V), reveal. Uses chord history + toRomanNumeral; contextual beats abstract drills.
5. Pocket report — extend the onset/BPM histogram to show beat-phase drift (rushing/dragging), plus a 2-&-4-only click synced to the detected tempo.
6. Mode-difference teaching — when the user manually switches mode (the K-S limitation), briefly highlight the difference notes (minor → Dorian = raised 6th).