Playing keyboards with GarageBand software

As with the drum instruments, GarageBand for the iPad offers you two options if you want to play keyboards. The first is the regular Keyboard which will allow you to play however you wish, while the other is a Smart Keyboard that will assist you in your playing. Select Keyboard from the Instruments menu and you will see the keyboard appear on the screen. As an alternative, you can actually plug in a

USB keyboard

to play on but we'll go over that in a later episode.

Control what octaves you want to play using the left and right arrows above the left side of the keys. Beside that is a slider that controls sustain, much as the pedals would on a standard piano. This slider can be toggled while playing but you might find that awkward. Right of that slider is an option that toggles between Glissando and Scroll. Basically, Glissando allows you to slide across the keys like you would with a real

keyboard or piano

while Scroll lets you scroll up and down the range of the keyboard.

Another option you have is to tap on Scale. If you're not that familiar with keyboard, piano or music theory, this option will allow you to pick a scale so you only play notes that fit that scale. There are a wide range of options besides just Major and Minor, so check it out. The button beside scale allows you to turn on the Arpeggiator. Once you move the Run slider to On, you'll be able to

play arpeggios

, or sequences of notes relative to the key or keys you play. You'll also be able to choose the speed, how many notes are in a sequence, and what order they are played in. While playing an arpeggio, you can also slide Sustain to On in order to hear your arpeggio repeated and tap a different note to hear the sequence transposed relative to that note.

You can also

change the layout of your keyboard

by tapping the button that looks like a keyboard at the far right. This gives you the ability to adjust the width of your keyboard so it offers you more keys, or even drag in a second keyboard that will hover over the first so you can play both at once. Naturally, there are also different types of keyboards you can play. You should be playing Grand Piano by default, so just tap on that icon to see a list of other types of keyboards. Some are synthesizer-type keyboards and will offer you dials for tweaking the sound of your keyboard. If you have one of these tweaked to your liking, you can save it and it will appear under the custom tab for later use.

If you want a more automated keyboard experience, you can select the Smart Keyboard from the Instruments screen. When you first open this, you'll see a series of towers with chord names above. Tap or swipe your finger across these to hear the associated sounds and you can also tap notes from different towers. Turn on Autoplay to see these towers broken down into two-part segments. Tap either of these parts to have GarageBand automatically play those notes, one from the top and one from the bottom. Different Autoplay settings will offer different patterns of playing. Also, you should know that the Smart Keyboard is easier to play but doesn't offer you as many types of keyboards to play around with.