Listening to the Finished Song

Before you start the next series of exercises, it's good to know what you're aiming for. Follow these steps to hear the finished song you will be creating with Apple Loops.

The song you'll create is called IvoryDreams and is about a kid suffering though boring piano lessons but always dreaming of being in a band that makes it to the top. I used the creative energy of a live music jam session as a template for the music.

In the many jam sessions I've experienced over the years, somebody in the band has an idea for a riff, and in a matter of seconds, other musicians catch the groove and join in. In IvoryDreams, as you'll hear in a moment, something similar happens. The piano comes in, then the strings double-up on the melody, then the basic percussion, bass, and drums come in, and finally the song ends with a cymbal crash.

Keep in mind, a jam session is live musicians joining in to play an unrehearsed piece of music and to see where it goes. In some ways, writing a song in GarageBand is the opposite of a jam session because you have to think and plan each part to add it to the Timeline. On the other hand, since your musical choices in GarageBand are unlimited, the essence of a jam session lives on.

1.	Choose File > Open and select 5-5 IvoryDreams final from the Lesson_05 folder to open the song. Don't save the changes to the previous project. The project 5-5 IvoryDreams final opens in the Timeline. The song is composed of five Software Instrument tracks and six Real Instrument tracks.
2.	Play the song from the beginning of the Timeline. Note If you are running a slower computer and are having trouble playing this song, try locking the Software Instrument tracks by clicking the small Lock button on each track. Not only does this lock the track to prevent unwanted changes, but it also renders the track to the computer's hard drive so it won't need to be processed by GarageBand as it plays.g
3.	Choose File > Open and open the project 5-2 IvoryDreams start.
4.	Choose File > Save As, and save it to your My GarageBand Projects folder.