General Music
Tools
Tracks & Effects
Simple but Important Words
Abbreviations
100

The speed or rate at which beats occur in music.

tempo

100

Short for reverberation. An effect that re-creates the sound of different acoustic spaces by playing back copies of a sound at slightly varied times and volume levels.

Reverb

100

A track that controls the overall sound of a project. You can show the master track in the Tracks area, and edit the master volume, pitch, and tempo automation curves track in the master track.

Master Track

100

sound, especially sound recorded to make the tracks

Audio

100

beats per minute, indicates a tempo of a piece of music.

Bpm

200

This is used to create anticipation at the beginning of the song

intro

200

This tool let’s your song end gradually

fade out

200

A feature in GarageBand that allows you to add a virtual drummer to your project, using a Drummer track. You can edit the drummer’s performance in the Drummer Editor

Drummer

200

Similar to the library button but this allows you to quickly find sounds, loops, and instruments.

loop browser

200

Also known as equalizer, which is a function that allows you to make changes to specific frequencies of sounds

Eq

300

perceived loudness of a sound

volume

300

area that gives you a close-up view of part of a track that is in

the Tracks area

Editor

300

horizontal rows in the track area where you use it to organize music and control the sound of the recording/other materials in the project

Track

300

Set of notes played together. They can be major of minor

Chord

300

Liquid crystal display; located in the center of control bar and shows current position of playhead, and can show the tempo, key, and time signature of the project

LCD

400

regular, repeating rhythmic pulse of a song

Beat

400

Use this tool to trim or copy a clip to a desired size.


trim

400

a sound effect is an artificially created or enhanced sound, or sound process used to emphasize artistic or other content of films, television shows, live performance, animation, video games, music, or other media

Effect

400

A vertical line in the Tracks area that shows what part of the project is currently playing, or where playback starts when you click the Play button. The playhead extends from the top to the bottom of the Tracks area. The triangle at the top of the playhead shows its current position in the ruler

Playhead

400

Acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface. A standard protocol used for communication between electronic musical instruments and computers. You can play the software instruments in GarageBand using a USB or other MIDI-compatible musickeyboard

MIDI

500

This is a regular group of beats, which is hear in a larger rhythmic pulse of a piece of music.  In music, these are separated from each other with bar lines.

 Bar

500

A term for several metronome beats that are sounded prior to the start of a recording (or playback), typically for one bar

Count-in

500

A Garageband track you can use to synchronize the timing of other tracks

Groove track

500

The final part of a song, often repeated over and over while the sound fades to silence.

Outro

500

A digital format for communication audio recordings.  The only one Ms. Messano will accept.  

Mp3

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