There’s no question that GarageBand represents one of the better values in music software, especially since even Apple expect a lot of its users will simply acquire it with their Mac. It still ranks high on software you’d recommend to a beginner on a budget. Apple’s decision this year to add lessons, interactive lessons that introduce you to musical concepts, and to invite famous artists to play familiar songs, is a fantastic idea.

The Artist Lessons themselves, however, have been relatively few in number. I expect more are coming, but so far the only release since GarageBand came out was this week’s three episodes, featuring Sting and Sarah McLachlan.

Yes, that’s right, here’s Apple’s artist lineup: Sting, Sarah McLachlan, Fall Out Boy, Norah Jones, Colbie Caillat, Sara Bareilles, John Fogerty, OneRepublic, Ben Folds

So, at worst it feels a bit like the 1990s, and at best, like the tour schedule at Long Island’s Jones Beach. The issue here is, musical tastes are varied; part of what drives people to music in the first place is personal expression. There are a total of just 13 songs on the platform, all picked by Apple. Some of the lessons are pretty good, and the production values are slick, but there’s not enough quantity to satisfy people hungry to learn music and the choices overall are bland.

With all due respect to Apple, though, you can’t expect Apple to provide everything. Some artists and publishers have already built their own lessons. It’s time for others to step up, too.

Chris Breen at Macworld does exceptional, tough reviews of consumer sound software. He’s tackled GarageBand ‘09 in depth in a review published this week at Macworld.com. If you’re a beginning user, this review is for you – and if not, Chris will help you understand what that perspective is like for countless typical Mac users:

Unless you have an active interest in producing podcasts or creating a musical score, it’s likely you’ve opened GarageBand once and then never bothered with it again. Of all the programs that make up the iLife suite, none is more overlooked than this application. And, given its original focus, that’s not too surprising. Making music requires a skill not common in the general population of computer users.

Review: GarageBand ’09 | Macworld

I’ve gotten to spend some time with this review as the tech editor for the story, and testing GarageBand along with it, I definitely agree. The new lessons are really terrific – they won’t teach you to play, necessarily, but they’re polished, and they can whet musicians’ appetite for additional training options and real music lessons. The guitar effects sound terrific. The UI has been improved in subtle but significant ways that make things easier to find.

The one real disadvantage of the new version is that these terrific-sounding guitar effects don’t support MIDI control. They do support automation, but you can’t control them with anything other than the mouse.

To me, that means you may actually struggle to find a reason to get this upgrade on its own – which would be a problem, except that you’re either getting the new release with a new Mac or are also getting major upgrades to iPhoto and iMovie. So, okay — there’s your reason. And for people with an older version wanting to get into something simple, I’d still easily recommend GarageBand.

If it’s video lessons that interest you, though, Chris has done a complete overview of video instructions options on the Mac. If you do get GarageBand 09, I think you’re likely to hunger for more than Apple currently offers, making this a useful resource. And if GarageBand 09 doesn’t interest you, this gives you some other choices for computer-assisted music learning.

Learn to play an instrument | Macworld

Incidentally, it’s too bad Apple doesn’t offer a way for musicians to build their own lessons in GarageBand; I think that’d be a big hit.

All of that said, I do think Apple is doing a whole lot to make music software more accessible to the first-time user. The fact that GarageBand is just there on a new Mac, and that steps in 09 make sure that if you click the icon you get something friendly and musical, really is significant.

Using the new GarageBand? Do let us know what you think of it.

Apple has posted the details of GarageBand ‘09. Most of the new improvements are in the form of the new Lessons feature, both built-in “Basic Lessons” and a la carte, $5 “Artist Lessons.” The basic specs:

• Basic lessons: Included with the program, these teach you the fundamentals of piano and guitar, with side-by-side notation, frets, and graphical representations of where to put your fingers if you’re an absolute beginner. The lessons include video and play-along music with adjustable tempo.
• Artist lessons (US$4.99): Available separately, the Artist Lessons include one song each, taught to you by the celebrity artist that created it. Sting teaches you “Roxanne,” and so on. There’s a step-by-step video with side-by-side visual representation, finger positioning, and chord notation, as in the Basics section. There’s also an interview with the artists talking about what the song meant to the artist (a nice addition), plus exclusive individual tracks so you can, for instance, listen in on just the guitar solo. (These sound as though they come from the original recordings.)
• Additional amp, stompbox models, plus 3D view. There’s a gimmicky new visualization of amps and stompboxes, and it’s a good value if you use the rest of iLife, though Apple doesn’t quite stack up (pardon the pun) to modeled offerings in dedicated guitar amp software.
• Improved GarageBand Jam. This visualization of 3D instruments playing along pretty much puzzled people in the last version of GarageBand – pretty, but what was it for? Now, this view navigates arrangements, shuffles instruments (not sure why that’s useful), and applies styles. It’s basically a dumbed-down way of taking loops and applying musical styles, but it is slightly improved in ‘09 and may be at least fun for casual users who are intimidated by the full program.

It’s a huge win for Apple in really focusing on what people need to get into music. Seeing a friendly artist face and getting no assumptions about what they know could motivate people in a way no music software has in the past.

Of course, I always find thing to complain about. I find it a little odd that the artist lineup is all white. I mean, not that we just elected our first African-American President and African-Americans had some impact on American rock, folk, pop, and jazz, or anything like that. (For that matter, there’s no Latin-American representation. Or Classical Music. Or quite a lot of other things.) I assume this complaint will be addressed as Apple beefs up its library, but I’ll say it again – this is an opportunity; Apple alone can’t teach everyone to make music, and that’s fine!

My main complaint is that you do need to buy the $79 (or even $99) upgrade even if you recently bought a new Mac, just to buy the $5 videos. But even that’s not a complaint: it’s a hint to everyone else who could be shooting interesting videos like this. You hear me, I hope?

And despite my gripes, I really do think this is very nicely done, and I hope it does attract new people to music. For existing GarageBand users, whether you upgrade or not really depends on whether you want the videos and if the rest of the suite is useful to you.

GarageBand ‘09 Product Page

More analysis (and why some competitors do have an opportunity, if they will take it): GarageBand ‘09 Celebrity Lessons, US$4.99; But How to Really Learn to Play Music?

Funniest response to this announcement: kaden_harris on Twitter replies:

“Gawd, think of the hipster name droppin at rehearsals…" Here’s a riff Sting showed me the other day…”

I can see the TV ad already.

What’s the biggest obstacle in music making? For most people, it’s basic musicianship. I’m not at the Macworld keynote, but the well-done TUAW liveblog tells me that Apple has in fact offered a product hoping to solve that. GarageBand ‘09 will come with built-in musical training, with add-on “celebrity” training packs for US$4.99 each. It’s great news, but it also makes me hopeful that the music education end of music technology will develop and flourish more than it has – along with music education in general.

As far as Apple’s new offerin, if I’m understanding this correctly, you’ll first need GarageBand ‘09 via iLife ‘09: that’s US$79 to upgrade, US$99 new, or free on a new Mac. You’ll then get nine lessons on the basics. (It’s actually not clear that there’s much else improved in this release of GarageBand; given Apple’s focus on incremental, specific feature improvements, this may be it.)

To get additional tutorials, you pay $4.99 a lesson. The pay-off is lovely, though: on-screen frets and keys show you what to do if you’re an absolute beginner, and the likes of John Fogerty, Colbie Callat, Sting, and Sarah McLachlan are the teachers.

There’s no question about it: this is a great way to get casual musicians hooked on music and music learning, and even if you’re not a Sarah McLachlan fan, that’s good news for all of us. But it’s also just the beginning.

Mac users are already assuming this will sell a lot of Macs, but that was the assumption with GarageBand. Not to burst the bubble here, but I think you’d probably be a little silly to invest in an entire Mac for a few minutes of video training; I’m not even sure if it’s worth $100 if you don’t have much other use for iLife. But it is a significant offering, and I think the smartest idea here is offering $5 lessons. It’s so smart, in fact, that it’s too bad that GarageBand is apparently a prerequisite. So you ought to be smelling an opportunity if you’re in the training business: inexpensive, on-demand training could be addictive, even if traditionally this sort of lesson has been sold in a bundled or subscription form.

Apple is doing informal, video-based learning in a new way. It should be great for casual users. But for real music lovers wanting to go deeper, there are already other products, and this should be an impetus for them to both step up the quality of their delivery and capture GarageBand graduates in a new way.

Three tools immediately spring to mind.

Apple’s latest GarageBand 08 is nothing if not pretty. It remains a fun way for Mac users to get their feet wet in music making, and hopefully, simple as it is, something like Magic GarageBand will include users to brave the GarageBand icon that comes factory-installed on their Macs.

But what about serious music making? There are still reasons to keep the latest GarageBand around. A streamlined interface makes applying effects much easier than before. Multi-take recording could make this version ideal as a sketchpad for recording ideas, even if you do the rest of your work in another tool. And finally, you can print notation.

Here’s a visual tour of the new software (click the thumbnails to open an interactive gallery):

So, what about serious “pro” users? (I never liked the term “pro” in that I think it vastly oversimplifies the market, but you get the idea.) A Wikipedia article has been compiling examples of celebrity users, at least, which tend to fit in basic categories:

• Loop users: This is probably the worst possible way to be recognized using GarageBand — having someone hear a loop they know comes with the program. Examples: the movie Constantine, and the fifth season of 24.
• GarageBand for demos: Here’s a better way to use GarageBand — as a quick and dirty demo / sketch maker. Artists in this category: Courtney Love, Fred Durst from Limp Bizkit, Panic! At The Disco.
• GarageBand for fan remixes: Erasure and Nine Inch Nails have both let fans remix tunes with GarageBand. Interestingly, there have been more “fan remix” projects in Acid and Pro Tools, among others. Ableton Live would still be my choice for fan remixing, personally, but mostly we’ll have to see how this trend pans out.

I expect there are many more — I see Mac hardware almost every time I’m hanging around big-name musicians — though I also know many use other tools, like Live and Reason. GarageBand has perhaps gotten extra hype because it comes from Apple and it’s free. But it does have its uses: there are some nice instruments and effects there, and it works well as a linear sketchpad along other tools (including Logic, via Logic export).

Do you use GarageBand? Or did you dump the multi-gig GarageBand install to save hard drive space and leave you to focus on other tools?