

If you are a GarageBand newbie, be sure to click on the quick help button on the top of the screen. You can use this to get by with a little help from some friends, but not to get high with a little help from some friends. Mess around with this feature to get some sparse or busy sounding chord sections to create mood. The autoplay feature lets you set how many fingers are playing each particular chord in your instrument. Remember those touch instruments I keep harping on? GarageBand for iOS lets you do another nifty thing with them. If only they had autoplay for dealing with my ex-wife. People might think you party just a little bit too hard. Go crazy with the Dsus4 Add9, but not too crazy. It allows you to input eight chords into every instrument at will. You can tell each instrument which chords to play simply by clicking on the wrench icon.

However, if you are going for an “impending doom” David Lynch type thing, you are gonna want to switch to some minor variations, among others. The above-mentioned smart instruments will start playing basic chords, usually the same major chords you hear everywhere. So play the chords of love my friend, play the chords of pain. Here’s another quick tip: Tap and hold on the instrument to open up the instrument menu, which allows you to switch instruments on the fly and more. Some of these instruments can make some really great sounds and Apple has not skimped on the high quality samples. It’s almost, but not quite, like playing a real instrument but it truly is a whole lot of fun. One of the neat advantages of using the iOS version is the addition of touch instruments, which allow you to, well, touch the instruments in order to make sound come out.
