Composing beats on Garageband is an easy way to get started making music.
Putting together beats on Garageband can enable you to try out music ideas without the need for a drummer or percussionist. Garageband is an easy to use software program developed for Mac computers. The loop and instrumental sample libraries are very well labeled and the learning curve on the program is not steep, making it easy for beginners to start making music immediately. You can put together beats to sing over or to compose instrumental ideas.
Instructions
1. Turn on your computer, and double click on the Garageband software program. In the window that opens, click "New Project," which will begin a session in Garageband. Another window will ask you to name the project and pick the time signature and tempo for playing your beats. Make selections or leave the default settings. You can change them later in the session.
2. With your session open, click the eye icon in the lower right-hand corner of the window. This will open your loop and sample library. Open the "Percussion" sample library and scroll down to the section where individual long cymbal crash samples are listed. Click on each sample to listen to it, and drag one you like into your session window. Place that sample on beats one and three of each measure for as many measures as you'd like to work with. This will be your first track in your beat making session.
3. Keeping the percussion library open, find the individual snare drum samples. Click on each one to listen to it and drag the one you like to the session window. This will automatically give you a second track. Drag your snare drum sample to beats two and four in your session. This will give you your downbeats for your beats, which come on two and four in rock and hip hop grooves. Repeat the same steps finding a bass drum sample you like; place that sample on beats one and three.
4. Feel free to add other percussion samples from the library in the spaces in between the beat you just created, this will start to add interesting sounds to your groove and can make your groove more syncopated and interesting.
