practice-routine

name	practice-routine
description	Suggests a structured practice routine for a stated goal — jazz comping, soloing, ear training, fingerstyle technique, etc. Pure catalog skill drawing on guitar-pedagogy templates. Use when a learner asks 'give me a practice plan for X' / 'how do I practice Y'.
triggers	["practice routine","practice plan","practice schedule","how do i practice","what should i practice","drilling","drill for","warm-up drill","exercises for","improve at","transcription drill","sight-reading","ear training drill"]
license	internal
compatibility	{"agent-framework":">=1.0.0-preview","microsoft-extensions-ai":">=10.5.1"}
metadata	{"authoring-style":"deterministic-catalog","origin":"drafted in skills-dev/ as Tier 4 catalog skill (skill-stewards 2026-05-05)","evidence-kinds":["catalog_lookup"]}

Practice Routine Suggestions

Catalog skill — when a user asks for a practice plan, match their goal to one of the templates below and reproduce verbatim with light personalisation (their stated key, tempo, or instrument).

How to dispatch

User states a goal (jazz comping, fingerstyle, soloing, ear training, scales, technique, repertoire). Match to the closest template; if none fit, ask one clarifying question before defaulting.

Templates

🎹 Jazz comping (rhythm guitar / piano)

Daily 30-min routine:

1. Warm-up (5 min) — drop-2 voicings of one ii-V-I in any key, both hands.
2. Voicing inventory (10 min) — pick a tune (e.g. Autumn Leaves); play 3 different voicings of each chord.
3. Comping rhythms (10 min) — Charleston, bossa, four-on-the-floor; each over the same ii-V-I.
4. Free comping (5 min) — over a backing track, no charts.

🎸 Soloing / improvisation

Daily 30-min routine:

1. Scale warm-up (5 min) — one major scale + its modes in one position.
2. Arpeggio drilling (10 min) — arpeggios of the chords in your target tune, ascending and descending.
3. Target-tone practice (10 min) — over a backing track, land on chord tones at the bar line.
4. Free solo (5 min) — record yourself; listen back.

👂 Ear training

Daily 15-min routine:

1. Interval recognition (5 min) — major and minor 3rds, perfect 4ths and 5ths, octaves, then sevenths.
2. Chord-quality recognition (5 min) — major / minor / diminished / augmented / dominant 7th / major 7th.
3. Diatonic-degree recognition (5 min) — in a fixed key, which scale degree is the melody on?

Tools: any ear-training app (functional-ear-trainer, EarBeater, Tenuto). The chatbot can quiz you on intervals if you ask.

🎶 Fingerstyle technique

Daily 20-min routine:

1. Right-hand independence (5 min) — alternate-bass over a held chord (e.g. C: bass C–G–C–E with melody on top).
2. Travis picking (5 min) — alternating thumb (root then 5th of the chord) on bass strings, fingers playing syncopated melody on top three strings.
3. Tune work (10 min) — one section of an arrangement (e.g. Tommy Emmanuel, Chet Atkins, Don Ross).

📈 Repertoire building

Weekly: 1 tune per week drilled to memory. Pick one across genres each week (jazz standard, bluegrass tune, pop song, classical piece). After 12 weeks, you have 12 tunes you can pull out anywhere.

🧘 Technique: barre chords / left hand

Daily 10-min routine:

1. Single-finger barre (3 min) — index finger across all 6 strings, find the cleanest position (usually 5th–7th fret), play one note at a time.
2. F major barre (3 min) — full E-shape barre, 30 seconds at a time, rest, repeat.
3. B major barre (4 min) — A-shape barre, switch between B and C every measure.

How long to commit

Realistic ranges:

• 15 min/day — incremental progress on one focus area.
• 30–60 min/day — meaningful improvement on 2 focus areas.
• 2+ hr/day — pre-professional / serious-amateur intensity.

Pick the time you can SUSTAIN, not the time you'd ideally like.

When to refuse / clarify

• "Make me a 6-month curriculum" — too much; offer the 30-day starter and reassess.
• Goals outside guitar / piano contexts (e.g. "how do I practice singing") — defer.

When to call other skills

• "What chords should I practice for jazz?" → chord-info for individual chords; for the diatonic set, scale-info returns the scale notes (full diatonic-chords lookup is roadmap).
• "What key is this progression in?" → key-identification.
• "What chord comes next?" → progression-completion.