Valhalla Island

The newest addition to GarageBand is basic and artist lessons. It is was an audio editing application, the same way iMovie is a video editing application, the same way iPhoto is an image organiser and editor. Now it includes lessons on how to create the content you might use GarageBand to edit. Putting music lessons in GarageBand is like putting photography workshops in iPhoto or public speaking tutorials in Keynote or writing exercises in Pages. They’re related but the software is supposed to be the tool, you provide the content.

The lessons look to be high quality and that part of the application looks beautiful and functional. Standalone, I think the lessons section of GarageBand ‘09 would make a fantastic product. Just not part of an audio editing app.

It’s an effort to bring wider appeal to GarageBand. Everyone takes photos, many produce video but many less produce their own music, especially in that window between learning and using a more professional audio recording and editing tool. If you want iPhoto, iMovie and iWeb you get GarageBand as part of the iLife suite. Even though the suite is pretty cheap it’s bothersome to feel like you’re paying for something you’re never possibly going to use. If GarageBand can teach you to play music, while you’re still probably no more likely to use it, there’s the potential.

Then the artist lessons take gimmicky to sky high levels. I’d rather be taught by a professional teacher I know hasn’t sold out to piles of cash to add some super contrivance to GarageBand than a popular musician.

This is an ongoing trend in Apple’s applications — Safari with a built-in feed reader, Mail with notes and to-do lists now GarageBand with lessons. I don’t like it.