How To: Use GarageBand’s “Learn to Play”

For $5, Sting will teach you how to play "Roxanne."

Apple has made it really easy to learn how to play an instrument at home. The application GarageBand comes standard with the Mac OS, and with it, you can learn the fundamentals of how to play basic, rock or blues guitar, or piano.

To get started, launch GarageBand, and then click on Learn to Play. You’ll then be able to select the intro lesson to your instrument of choice.

“Intro to Guitar” comes with GarageBand.  On the timeline (located under the video) you are able to control which sections you would like to go over. On the top right of the full screen demo are a Glossary (for music terms), a Tuner (if you have your guitar plugged into your computer), a Mixer (for volumes of teacher’s voice, guitar, etc.) and Setup (for music notations or how you would like to view your music notes while in Play mode). When you feel ready to take a take on the song that you have been practicing in the video, hover over the video screen and click Play. In Play mode you are also able to pause, repeat, and slow down parts of the song to make it easier to learn. After a little practice you can record yourself and listen to what you sound like by hitting the  Record button on the bottom middle.

You can also learn from one of your favorite artists, such as Sting, but this costs about $5 per lesson (lessons go from Beginner to Advanced). All of this should be located in GarageBand’s Lesson Store.

See videos about using GarageBand on Apple’s website.