Working with Basic Music Arrangement Techniques

Consider this section your basic training for song arrangement, before you dive into the battlefield of a full song. Throughout this lesson, I'll throw in some basic songwriting rules I've come up with over the years. Keep in mind that rules are meant to be broken, and that music is very subjective, so there are no absolutes. The "rules" of songwriting are more like guidelines to keep you and your music on track (pun intended).

Rule #1: Decide what type of song you are going to write, and choose instruments and parts that will work for that song.

This seems like a basic and obvious concept, but it's often overlooked, especially by new songwriters. Along with the power of GarageBand comes the temptation to try everything at once. There are so many different instruments and so many prerecorded loops to choose from that you might get caught up in the search and forget the song.

Think of songwriting like cooking. If you're baking a cake, you use the ingredients for cake. If you're making meatloaf, you use the meatloaf ingredients. If you mix the cake ingredients into the meatloaf, you get meatcake surprise, which probably tastes as bad as it sounds and is probably not what you were going for when you started.

Searching for Loops That Fit

Remember your goal! The song you are arranging is called Techno80s, so in theory it should consist of instruments that were used during that era. During the 1980s, electronic drum kits and digital keyboards infiltrated popular music. Some bands played all electronic techno instruments, for a total techno sound. Others bands had rock-and-roll roots and blended techno sounds with their classic rock instruments. The GarageBand loop library comes with some excellent examples of 80s music loops, which have all been conveniently named after the era "80s."

Let's look at some of the 80s loops available in the GarageBand loop library.

1.	Click the Loop Browser button to show the Loop Browser.
2.	Type 80s in the Search text field and press Return to view all of the 80s loops.
3.	Click the first loop, 80s Dance Bass Synth 01, to preview it. Notice the familiar techno sound.
4.	Press the down arrow to preview the next loop in the list.
5.	Continue pressing the down arrow until you have previewed all 18 of the 80s loops in the results list. Note If you have installed any of the Jam Pack expansions for GarageBand, or added additional third-party loops to the browser, you may have more than 18 different 80s loops. If so, preview some of them, but you don't have to listen to all of them at this time. As you can see, you have all the ingredients you need for a basic techno 80s song. Of course, you aren't limited to only regions marked 80s. These are just a good place to start.
6.	Press Cmd-L or click the Loop Browser button to close the Loop Browser.

Evaluating a Monotonous Arrangement

Now that you've heard some of the building blocks for the song, let's evaluate a very basic arrangement in the Timeline.

There are currently three basic tracks with music in the Timeline: a synthesizer track, synthetic bass track, and drum kit. These are the basic ingredients of a song. All three tracks utilize the prerecorded 80s loops from the Loop Browser. Let's listen to hear how it sounds.

1.	Play the song in the Timeline and listen to the tracks. What do you think? I think the different parts work well together. They definitely have an 80s sound, and I think they could work as part of a song. So what's wrong with this arrangement? For starters, there is no beginning, no middle, and no end. Just the same thing repeated over and over from start to finish.
2.	Press the Home key to move the playhead to the beginning of the Timeline.
3.	Click the Cycle button and create a cycle region over the regions in the Timeline.

Using Shortcuts to Solo and Mute Tracks

Now that you have heard all three tracks together, let's see how it sounds if we listen to just one or two tracks at a time. You already know how to click the Solo and Mute buttons to listen to specific tracks. For this exercise, you'll learn some new keyboard shortcuts.

The keyboard shortcut for Solo is S. The keyboard shortcut for Mute is M. In addition, you can use your up and down arrows to change the selected track in the Timeline.

1.	If it is not already selected, click the track header for the top track in the Timeline.
2.	Press the down arrow to select the next track down in the Timeline.
3.	Press the up arrow to select the track above the current selected track. The top track should now be selected.
4.	Press S to solo the top track.
5.	Press the spacebar to start playback and listen to only the top track. After you've heard the first measure or so, move on to the next step. Keep playback going.
6.	While the playhead is moving, press the down arrow to select the second track from the top.
7.	Press S to solo that track with the first.
8.	Press the up arrow to select the track above.
9.	Press M to mute the top track.
10.	Press the down arrow four times to select the first Drum Kit track.
11.	Press S to solo the Drum Kit track with the Synthetic Bass track.
12.	Experiment with different combinations of the tracks to see how they sound together.
13.	Press the spacebar to stop playback. Then, turn off all Mute and Solo buttons for all of the tracks.
14.	Click the Cycle button to close the cycle region.

What did you think this time? I think it is much more interesting when you hear one part alone, then add other parts over time, instead of all of them at once. Why is it better that way? Because when you have only one instrument, then start adding new instruments, it feels like the beginning of a song instead of just a lot of repeating loops.

This leads me to another rule of songwriting.

Rule #2: Make sure your song has a beginning, middle, and end.

Again, this seems simple, and it is. Most songs have a defined beginning, which leads to a middle, and then eventually it ends. Remember, songs are like stories, which also have a defined beginning, middle, and end. I'm not saying that you should make every song start and end the same way. I'm saying that you should define the start and end with something special.

Evaluating a Region That Is Out of Time with the Rest of the Project

Have you heard the musical term "off beat?" Off beat is an expression for a musical part that is out of time with the other music. Sometimes recording a musical part that is played outside the main rhythmic pulses (beats) of a song is intentionalit's a way to make the part stand out from the rest of the song. When you play a part off beat intentionally, it is often referred to as playing the backbeat of a song. Most of the time, you want to keep all of your musical parts in time. For this exercise, we'll focus on the negative effects of accidentally making your regions out of time.

There are two ways you can make regions out of time or off beat:

• You move a region while snap to grid (snapping) is off.

• Your performance is not in time with the music when you record a region. If your music is out of time when you record it, it'll be out of time when you play it back in the Timeline.

To get a feel for why this is important, let's demonstrate what it sounds like when musical parts are out of time with one another.

1.	Click-drag the region in the Drum Kit track to the beginning of the 3rd measure. Note If your Time Display is showing actual time, click the lower-left corner of the display to switch back to musical time.
2.	Play the Timeline from the beginning and listen to the regions together. All of the regions work together with the rhythm (time) of the song.
3.	Press Cmd-G to turn snapping off in the Timeline. For a review of GarageBand's Snap to Grid feature, see Lesson 4.
4.	Click-drag the same region to the left a little bit (not a full beat).
5.	Play the Timeline from the beginning and listen to the timing of the regions. How does it sound? If it sounds pretty chaotic and doesn't fit the groove of the other regions, that's because you moved it out of time or off beat. If you got lucky and it still sounds good, move it a little more. Chances are if you move it again, it'll be out of time with the other regions.
6.	Press Cmd-G to turn snapping back on.
7.	Click-drag the region in the Drum Kit track to the beginning of the 2nd measure.
8.	Play the Timeline again and listen to the difference when the drum beat is in time with the other regions.

Note

A region does not have to start at the beginning of a measure to be in time with the other regions. When snapping is on, you can snap a region to different beats or ticks within beats, depending on the settings you have for Snap to Grid. When the grid is set to automatic, it will adjust the snap-to value of the grid as you zoom in or out of the Timeline.

Arranging the Beginning of the Song

Now it's time to liven up the opening of this song. Remember how much better it sounded when you experimented with the Solo and Mute buttons to bring the different instruments into the song? Let's arrange the regions in the Timeline to create that same effect. This will become the opening of the Techno80s song.

1.	Click-drag the region in the Synthetic Bass track so that it starts at the beginning of the 2nd measure.
2.	Click-drag the region in the Drum Kit track so that it starts at the beginning of the 5th measure.
3.	Play the new opening to hear how it sounds. The beginning of the song is better, but the synthesizer riff on the top track is starting to get annoying. It's a cool and catchy synthesizer riff, but too much of any repetitive musical part can become a distraction in your song.

That reminds me of another songwriting rule.

Rule #3: Sprinkle your music with catchy, stand-out riffs to liven up the song, but don't flood your song with these riffs, or you'll drown the other tracks.

In other words, less is more. It's common to use a catchy riff several times in a song, perhaps near the beginning, middle, and end. By spreading them out, you leave the audience wanting more instead of wanting it to end.

Think of your song as an action movie. In most action movies, the crashes, chases, and explosions are separated by story. If you went to an action movie that was just a series of explosions over and over, you'd probably be tired of them in a few minutes. The same thing goes for musical explosionsor cool musical riffs or partsthat you add to your song to make it more interesting.

Splitting a Repetitive Region

Let's split the region in the Synthesizer track so that it comes in and out of the song instead of playing continuously.

1.	Select the 80s Dance Bass Synth 07 region in the top track.
2.	Move your playhead to the beginning of the 3rd measure.
3.	Press Cmd-T to split the region at the playhead position. The region splits into two separate regions.
4.	Move the playhead to the beginning of the 7th measure.
5.	Press Cmd-T to split the region again at the playhead position.
6.	Click the empty track space after the last region in the top track to deselect the regions in that track. Note You can click the empty space on any track to deselect a region or regions.
7.	Click the middle 80s Dance Bass Synth 07 region in the top track to select that region.
8.	Press Delete to delete the middle region from the Timeline. There are now two short regions in the Synthesizer track.
9.	Play the Timeline from the beginning to hear the new opening. Notice how the different parts take turns. The synthesizer part is no longer distracting you from hearing the rest of the tracks.

Finishing the Beginning of the Song

The beginning of the song is almost finished. All you need to do is trim the region in the Synthetic Bass track and make one modification to the second Synthesizer region.

1.	Press Ctrlright arrow to zoom in to the Timeline.
2.	Move the playhead to the 3rd beat of the 7th measure (halfway between the 7th and 8th measures). Check the Time Display to confirm that the playhead is in the correct position. Note You do not have to move the playhead to trim or move a region. However, the playhead is a guide that lets you see the position in the Time Display and make sure you are moving or trimming to the proper location.
3.	Click-drag the upper-right corner of the region in the Synthetic Bass track and shorten the region until it ends at the playhead position. The 80s Dance Bass Synth 01 region should now end halfway between the 7th and 8th measures.
4.	Click-drag the upper-right corner of the second region in the Synthesizer track and shorten it by one full loop segment. The remaining loop region should start at the beginning of the 7th measure and end at the beginning of the 8th measure. Now that you've shortened the second synth part, let's add another synth loop to keep things interesting.
5.	Click the Loop Browser button to open the Loop Browser (if it's not already open).
6.	Click the 80s Dance Bass Synth 06 loop in the results list to hear the loop.
7.	Click again to stop previewing the loop in the results list.
8.	Click-drag the 80s Dance Bass Synth 06 loop from the browser and drop it in the top track at the beginning of the 6th measure. The new loop region appears in the track right before the original loop region.
9.	Play the new region in the Timeline. The two synthesizer loops work well together and sound as if they were meant to play together.
10.	Press Shift-Cmd-S to open the Save As window.
11.	Change the name of the project to Techno80s and save it in your GarageBand Songs folder on the Desktop.

That's it. You've arranged the beginning of the song using basic arranging techniques. Basic arranging techniques include finding loops, adding them to the Timeline, and arranging the regions so they start at different times. You also split and resized regions to make them less repetitive.

Knowing how to physically move regions in the Timeline is the physical act of arranging music. But keep in mind that your overall goal is to build a great song. Always think about why you are arranging the song in a particular way, and make sure it sounds good. If it doesn't sound good to you, it probably won't sound good to anyone else. If you're not sure if you like a part, change it. When the part is right, you know immediately.