Music Production Basics: Make Your First Track in GarageBand

In this class you will go from an empty GarageBand project to a finished, exported song. We will set up a session the right way, build a groove with Drummer and Apple Loops, play chords and a bass line with software instruments, write a simple melody, arrange everything into sections, and finish with a clean, balanced mix you can share.

This class is for complete beginners and for anyone who has opened GarageBand, clicked around, and closed it again. You do not need to read music or play an instrument well. If you can tap keys on a computer keyboard in time with a click, you can follow along. Everything happens in GarageBand on a Mac, which is free with macOS.

By the end you will have a short original instrumental track, roughly one to two minutes long, with an intro, verse, chorus, and outro, exported as an audio file. More importantly, you will understand a repeatable workflow you can use for every song you make next.

Your class project is a complete one-to-two-minute instrumental track built entirely in GarageBand. Use the lessons as checkpoints and build your song as you go.

• A Drummer or loop-based beat at a tempo you choose
• A four-chord progression and a bass line that follows it
• A short melody or hook played on a software instrument
• At least four arranged sections: intro, verse, chorus, outro
• A balanced mix exported as an MP3 or WAV, plus a few sentences on what you would change next time