Direct students to www.musictheory.net. This site has an outstanding series of lessons that cover beginning to advanced music theory concepts. Students should watch the lesson entitled Common Chord Progressions.

Play the following musical game with the class to help the students begin to identify the sound of various progressions. Select one student to write a chord on the board. (The teacher will play the chord.) That student will pass the chalkboard or white-board marker to another student, and that student will write a different chord that typically follows the first chord. Continue this activity until all of the students have written a chord on the board. Perform the entire progression on a piano/keyboard. See Figure 7.1.

Figure 7.1. Chord progression chart.

Drag the GarageBand file Chord Bank Composition Template, located on the companion DVD, onto your computer’s hard drive.

Open Chord Bank Composition Template in GarageBand.

Solo the Chord Bank track by clicking the Headphone icon under the track name (see Figure 7.2). When a track is soloed, the headphones will light up yellow.

Figure 7.2. The Headphone/Solo icon.

Play the file. You will hear the diatonic chords based on the C Major scale.

Using the chord progression chart, compose a chord progression on paper. I strongly suggest using paper and pencil before you try to create the chord progression in GarageBand!

Drag the various chords from the Chord Bank track to the Chord Progression track to compose your chord progression in GarageBand. If you used chords more than once, you can copy them by holding the Option key and clicking and dragging the region. If you are using two chords in a single bar, shorten each region so it only lasts two beats by using the Trim tool. (Note: Place your cursor in the lower-right corner of a region to reveal the Trim tool.) See Figure 7.3.

Figure 7.3. Compose a chord progression using chords from the Chord Bank track.

Listen to the chord progression. Are there any chords that sound out of place? Is the harmonic rhythm interesting? Make any modifications to your chord progression at this time, because the melody and bass parts are based on the chord progression.

Unsolo the Chord Progression track and solo the Melody track.

Play the file. You will hear a melody that plays an interesting rhythm but stays only on the pitch C.

Click on the region located in the Melody track.

Open the Track Editor. The default view shows you a piano roll version of the notes with a piano keyboard stretched along the left side of the window. You can also view the traditional music notation by clicking on the Score button. See Figure 7.4.

Figure 7.4. Piano Roll view of the Melody track.

Drag each note up or down to a chord tone in each bar. Do not use any non-chord tones. See Figure 7.5.

Figure 7.5. Drag each note up or down to a chord tone in each bar.

Solo the chord progression so both the Chord Progression and the Melody track are soloed.

Listen to the melody along with the chord progression. Do any melody notes sound dissonant? If so, you may have accidentally used a non-chord tone.

Unsolo both the Chord Progression and the Melody track and solo the Bass track.

Play the file. Similar to the original melody region, you will hear a bass part that plays an interesting rhythm but stays only on the pitch C.

Click on the region located in the Bass track and open the Track Editor. See Figure 7.6.

Figure 7.6. Piano Roll view of the Bass track.

Drag each note up or down to either the root or the 5th of the chord for each bar. For example, if the sounding chord is C Major (I), the bass notes available are C (the root) and G (the 5th). Typically, you will play the root on the first note of the sounding chord. See Figure 7.7.

Figure 7.7. Drag each note up or down to the root or 5th of the sounding chord.

Unsolo the Bass track and listen to the melody, bass, and chord progression all together. Do any bass notes sound dissonant? If so, you may have used a bass note that was not the root or 5th of the sounding chord.

Currently, all of the instruments sounds are Grand Piano. Although there is nothing wrong with a piano trio, you can add a lot of interest to your composition by using a variety of instrument sounds.

Open the Track Info pane by clicking on the “i” icon in the toolbar, as shown in Figure 7.8.

Figure 7.8. Track Info icon.

Click on the Chord Progression track and play the file.

As the file plays, click on a new instrument category and then a new instrument in the Track Info pane. You should hear the sound of your chord progression change.

Repeat Steps 21 and 22 with the Melody and Bass tracks to create an interesting instrumental ensemble. See Figure 7.9.

Figure 7.9. Select new software instruments for each track.

You are now going to create a percussion accompaniment track. Create a new track by selecting Track > New Track or using the shortcut Option+Command +N (see Figure 7.10).

Figure 7.10. Select Track > New Track.

Select Software Instrument in the next window, as shown in Figure 7.11.

Figure 7.11. Select Software Instrument.

In the Track Info pane, select Drum Kits and then select a drum kit.

Test the sound by pressing on your MIDI keyboard or by using the Musical Typing keyboard (Window > Musical Typing).

Pick one note on your keyboard, such as snare drum. The snare drum sound is located on the fourth lowest D or E on the Musical Typing keyboard and on the lowest D or E on most MIDI keyboards. You may need to try various octaves or pitches to find a drum/percussion sound you think will work well with your other instruments.

Click the red Record button on the toolbar, shown in Figure 7.12, and improvise a drum accompaniment.

Figure 7.12. The Record button.

To improve the rhythmic accuracy of your percussion part, you can quantize your notes so they fit exactly on a given rhythmic value. Click on Enhance Timing in the Track Editor. Notice the variety of rhythmic values available. Select the smallest rhythmic value that you just performed. For most recordings you will likely use 1/16 or 1/8; however, you may also use the triplet values if you played any triplet rhythms during your improvisation. See Figure 7.13.

Figure 7.13. The Enhance Timing portion of the Track Editor.

Listen to the entire file and focus on the volume of each track. Adjust the gain (a.k.a. volume) slider in each track so the sound of each track blends with the others. A single instrument should not stand out.

Listen again and focus on the panning of each track. Panning refers to the placement of the sound in the left/right stereo field. If you go to see a concert, some musicians are on the right side of the stage, some are on the left, and some are in the center. The panning of your composition should reflect this reality. For example, try panning the chords to the left, the melody to the right, the bass slightly to the right, and the drum improvisation slightly to the left. Try to balance the right and left sides. It would sound odd if a majority of the sound came from just the left side or just the right side. See Figure 7.14.

Figure 7.14. Adjust the volume and panning of each track to create a nice blend and an interesting stereo image.

Evaluate your composition. Did you:

Export the finished project by selecting Share > Send Song to iTunes or Share > Export Song to Disk.

Use a music dictionary to define the word “minuet.” You may also use an online music dictionary, such as the one located at www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary or www.naxos.com/education/glossary.asp.

Listen to a variety of Mozart minuets. Using the iTunes Music Store, search for “Mozart Minuet” and listen to the preview clips of available songs.

Drag the file Mozart Minuet.mid from the companion DVD to your desktop to copy the file onto your computer’s hard drive.

Launch GarageBand.

Create a new GarageBand project by selecting File > New or using the shortcut Command+N (see Figure 7.15).

Figure 7.15. Select File > New.

Select New Project in the left pane of the QuickStart window and then select Piano from the list of icons (see Figure 7.16).

Figure 7.16. In the QuickStart window, select New Project and the Piano template.

Name the file Mozart Minuet Composition. Be sure to set the time signature to 3/4 because a minuet is in 3/4 meter (see Figure 7.17). Save the file to your desktop. 6. Delete the first track named Grand Piano by pressing Command+Delete.

Figure 7.17. Select 3/4 for the time signature.

Delete the first track named Grand Piano by pressing Command+Delete.

Click on the Finder icon in your Dock and navigate to the desktop.

Drag Mozart Minuet.mid from the Finder window into the gray area in your new GarageBand project. This will import the MIDI file (see Figure 7.18).

Figure 7.18. Import the Mozart Minuet.mid file into GarageBand by clicking and dragging from the Finder.

Solo one track at a time and listen to each track individually. The top track of this MIDI file is the harmony track. The six tracks below will be used to create an original melody for your minuet. The six melodic tracks can be used interchangeably. This means that Bar 1 from any track will work with Bar 2 of any track and so forth.

Select the six bottom melodic tracks.

Place the play head at Bar 2 and press Command+T to split all of the regions at Bar 2.

Continue splitting the melodic tracks at Bars 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8 (see Figure 7.19).

Figure 7.19. Split the six bottom melodic tracks at the start of each bar.

Click in the gray area of the Arrange window to deselect the regions.

Create a new Software Instrument track. (Choose Track > New or use the shortcut Option+Command+N and select Software Instrument.) You will use this track to compose your melody.

Mute all six of the melodic tracks by clicking the Speaker icon in each track. The Speaker icon will light up blue when a track is muted.

Drag one of the regions for Bar 1 from any of the melodic tracks into the top track.

Play the file and evaluate the sound of the melodic region that you chose and how it works with the harmony track. Try out another region by moving a different region for Bar 1 into the top track.

Continue using regions from each bar to compose a complete eight-bar minuet melody (see Figure 7.20).

Figure 7.20. Drag one region for each measure into a new Software Instrument track to compose a complete eight-bar melody.

Select all of the regions in your top melody track and join them together by choosing Edit > Join or using the shortcut Command+J (see Figures 7.21 and 7.22).

Figure 7.21. The new melody before joining.

Figure 7.22. The new melody after joining.

Select the melody track and select a new instrument sound from the Track Info pane. You certainly can keep the Grand Piano sound, but it may be more interesting to use a different sound.

Create a new Software Instrument. (Choose Track > New or use the shortcut Option+Command+N and select Software Instrument.)

This new track will serve as the bass part for the minuet, so I recommend selecting a bass instrument sound from the Track Info pane. If you decide to select a different instrument category, be sure to play the instrument relatively low on the MIDI keyboard so it serves the sonic purpose of a bass.

The chord progression for this song is C | C | G7 | C | D | G | D | G.

Select Control > Count In, as shown in Figure 7.23. This will provide you with a one-bar count-in before you begin recording.

Figure 7.23. Select Control > Count In.

Record an improvised bass line using only the roots of the chords listed a moment ago.

Quantize your bass recording to the lowest rhythmic value that you performed in the previous step (see Figure 7.24). Most likely, you will quantize to the 1/4 note or 1/8 note.

Figure 7.24. Quantize your bass recording.

Create another new Software Instrument track.

Select a sound from the Drum Kits category in the Track Info pane.

Record an improvised drum/percussion accompaniment track using a single drum sound.

Add in additional drum/percussion tracks as you see fit (see Figure 7.25).

Figure 7.25. Record one or more improvised drum/percussion tracks.

Adjust the panning and volume of the various tracks to create an interesting mix. Adjust the volumes of each track so they all blend together well. Adjust the panning of each track so some tracks are more on the left side and others are more on the right side, but remember to balance the left and right channels.

Figure 7.26. Click the down arrow below the track name to open the Automation window.

Figure 7.27. Click the green square to turn off track automation.

Select the melody region and view it in Score view in the Track Editor (see Figure 7.28).

Figure 7.28. View the melody region in Score view.

Print this part by selecting File > Print or pressing Command+P (see Figure 7.29).

Figure 7.29. Select File > Print to print the melody part.

Print the remaining parts (harmony, improvised bass, and all improvised drum/ percussion parts).

Perform the piece with one student on each part.