Senior High Band Songwriting Unit – GarageBand

CREATING A REAL SONG!

If you have completed all the Songwriting worksheets, at this point you should have material in
GarageBand that you have composed. The goal of this assignment is to guide you through
combining all your material to create one song that is 24 measures long, in ABA form.

ABA Form – An Explanation

• As discussed in the packet, we call different sections of songs A or B. They get different
letters because they sound different. Each section is 8 measures long for this project,
but professional songwriters create larger A and B sections (sometimes called “verses”
and “choruses”). Classical composers can write hour-long symphonies with many more
sections beyond A and B!
• YOUR PROJECT SONG:
o A section (8 measures)
o B section (8 measures; sounds different from A)
o A section (8 measures; sounds similar to first A section)
o TOTAL: 24 measures

Creating your song:

• Use the chart on Worksheet 6 to lay out your chords and instruments.
• Record your sections
• How to make the sections sound different? Try one of these:
o Change instrumentation
o Change chords
o Change both!

If your sections are in GarageBand as separate projects, here’s how to

create one long song:

1) Open your first A section file

2) Tap the + in the top right corner (near the measure numbers)
3) Tap “Add” twice. This will create 3 sections of 8 measures each, labeled A B and C.
a. Your C section of the song will actually be your repeated A section of music. In
this case, C is just a name for those measures.
4) Once you have 3 sections of 8 measures, tap outside the box. You now have blank
measures to fill.
5) At this point — you should have your A section for your first 8 measures, then another
16 blank measures to fill. Exit this project, and name it using this format:
FirstnameLastnameABA. This will be your final song to submit.
6) Find your B section material.
7) Tap and hold each green bar of recorded music (they should be bright green when
selected). When you’ve selected all the music for your B section, tap the bars and select
COPY.
8) Go back to your saved long song (your name + ABA) – go to measure 9
9) Tap the blank B section and hit PASTE. Now your B measures should appear in your
final song.
10) To add your final A section, find your last 8 measures of material and repeat the
copy/paste process into your final project.
11) You should now have a full 24-measure song!
12) Listen to the entire song and edit or change things as you like. Done!