Playing a Song in the Timeline

It's time to actually play the song that is in the Timeline. There are several ways to do that. You can click the Play button in the transport controls (the mouse method), or you can use the keyboard.

1.	Press the Home or Z key to move the playhead to the beginning of the song (if it is not already there).
2.	Press the spacebar to begin playback. Listen to the song 1-1 Eyewitness. Note If you get a warning message that part of the song was not played, your computer may not meet the system requirements to play this song. Click the Mute button (speaker) in the track controls on the String Ensemble track and on the Wind Chime track. If you still have problems, your computer probably doesn't have the required processing speed. You can download the alternative G3 version of this song from this book's companion Web site, www.peachpit.com/ats.gb2. For more information on system requirements and performance, see the introduction to this book, "Getting Started."
3.	Press the spacebar again to stop the playhead. Now let's try the transport control buttons located at the bottom of the GarageBand window, below the Timeline.
4.	Click the Go To Beginning button to move the playhead to the beginning of the Timeline. The Go To Beginning button is the first button on the left of the transport controls. It looks like a line with an arrow pointing to the left. The playhead moves to the beginning of the Timeline.
5.	Click the Play button, located in the middle of the transport controls, to play the song.
6.	Click the Play button again to stop playback.
7.	Click and hold the Fast Forward or Rewind buttons to move the playhead through the song. Release the mouse to stop rewinding or fast forwarding.
8.	Click the Go To Beginning button again to move the playhead back to the beginning of the song.

I composed and recorded the original version of the 1-1 Eyewitness song back in 1994 for a documentary I edited and scored about the Northridge earthquake called Live from the Epicenter. That was a decade ago, using what now seems like ancient recording technology, an audio engineer, and a studio full of equipment. If someone told me back then that I would be able to record and mix music with a simple program on my home computer, I probably would have said something skeptical like, "We'll put a rover on Mars before that ever happens!" Of course, that was before GarageBand.