Chapter 5. GarageBand

Think of GarageBand as your own private recording studio. Even if you're not a musician and didn't even play in the high school band or sing in the church choir, you'll soon be composing and arranging music soundtracks that will amaze everyone. If you do happen to have musical talent on any level, GarageBand provides the studio of your dreams.

If you don't play a musical instrument, use the provided musical loops to compose original arrangements, then enjoy playing them in iTunes. And with the help of iDVD, iMovie, and iPhoto, you can use your musical compositions for DVD menu audio tracks, movie soundtracks, or slideshow soundtracks.

GarageBand is capable of much more than we can cover in this short chapter, but we'll get you started with the basics and enough information to make GarageBand one of your favorite, creative pastimes.

A rapidly growing collection of GarageBand web sites provides training, tech support, forums, soundtrack loops, and other music-community offerings.

One of our favorite GarageBand sites is MacJams (www.MacJams.com). Be sure to check out their Buyer's Guide for great advice on accessories (keyboards, microphones, and more). The site also contains tutorials, reviews, and lots of original music submitted by GarageBand users.

When GarageBand opens, a virtual keyboard appears on your Desktop, as shown below. You can use it to play notes, but you'll find other techniques easier for creating songs. We suggest you play with this keyboard to experiment with the many different instrument voices and effects available in this amazing app.