COMPOSE YOURSELF WITH GARAGEBAND
I play the piano. I have a classical background and studied musical composition for many years as part of my educational upbringing. That said, I recently witnessed a computer program that gives someone with literally no musical background the ability to create musical compositions that would make a professional jealous. At first, it made me wonder if I had wasted all those years of musical study. But I quickly discovered that while a novice can create great sounding music with Apple Computer's GarageBand, in the hands of a musician, a product like this is one of the best tools of inspiration I have ever seen.
Now there are a lot of music software products out there that let you generate just about any instrument sound you can imagine, and even score the sheet music complete with lyrics. Others let you compose by adding layer upon layer of music tracks with the ability to edit any of them at any time. GarageBand has many of these features but what really sets it apart from the rest are the included professionally recorded Apple Loops.
Apple Loops are royalty-free musical interludes. The GarageBand package includes over a thousand of them. These musical loops are passages of music that have been designed to repeat themselves over and over again. The ones provided cover a wide range of musical genres and moods, and are played on a variety of musical instruments.
To begin the process, go in and find a loop that describes a feeling in which you might be interested, or just start listing to them until you hear something that catches your attention. GarageBand's built in loop browser makes things easier to find. Selecting "Drums" for example will display a list of available drum beats. The first loop of a riff is usually, but not necessarily the foundation for your composition. You may find yourself taking away loops and substituting new ones. As you continue to play with these loops of musical sounds, rhythms and melodies, your composition will begin to take shape. You literally build your music creation right on the screen on an easy to read display. If you need a loop to play longer or shorter, just stretch it to the appropriate length. Add a single instrument or a whole ensemble. You need know nothing about classical notation. GarageBand gives you the flexibility.
GarageBand is one of the best sources of inspiration I have ever experienced because as I listened to these looping creations, the melodies seemed to literally jump out of my head. I found myself writing new songs, one right after another. Composing was never this easy. Once I had the entire selection jamming, I simply used my connected music keyboard to lay down the melodies. GarageBand supports any musical instrument that can connect to the computer via a MIDI interface.
When your new masterpiece is done, you can export it to iTunes and burn it to a CD, transfer it to an mp3 player or import it into any software that uses mp3 sound tracks. Apple's iPods as well as many of Apple's software titles like iPhoto and iDVD are fully compatible.
And if you find yourself wanting even more loops and sounds, Apple has an additional library of them in their GarageBand Jam Pack. This collection features over 2000 more Apple Loops, over 100 new software instrument sounds and effect presets, and 15 guitar amp presets. GarageBand is part of Apple's iLife '04 suite of applications and sells for $49. It comes free with any new Apple Macintosh. The GarageBand Jam Pack goes for $99. All of these products work only on the Apple Macintosh computer.
As time passes, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if I were to discover that some new music hits were inspired using this piece of software genius.
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