What's GarageBand? For 5 $, its a guitar, piano, keyboards, drum kit and a mini recording studio all rolled into one and in your pocket ! You can now create music anytime, anywhere.
Wait, there's more - smart instruments. Smart guitar. Smart drums. Smart keyboards. Just tap away randomly and the app produces an in-tune riff, a smooth melody. With a bit of practice, you can come close to a college band level in a few hours.
GarageBand is just a simple manifestation of the tsunami headed our way in the creative arts. Till the last century, creativity in the fields of music, writing, painting and sculpture , photography and movies was the domain of only gifted souls. Artistry had strict access-control : years of practice, discipline and dedication led to the mastery of any complex art form. As a consequence, our world was split between the talented geniuses, the rank-amateurs and the vast majority that could only consume as creation was beyond their reach. This stemmed from the daunting process of creation - it requires the dexterity of articulating your emotions in some form of language. And each artform had its own unique language ... whether written, spoken, sung, painted, sculpted or captured on film.Then, technology started simplifying the process of creativity in these fields - new tools emerged, for example the desktop computers revolutionised word processing and keyboards made music easier to create. This blog post is an obvious example of this phenomena. But, GarageBand portends of a future where anyone can create and be artistic. It somewhat obviates the need to learn the "language" of music. Artistry is no longer the preserve of the born talented and those who dedicate years to mastering an artform - a novice can piece together a nifty tune in a few hours. It breaks down the process of creation into its basic building blocks, but with a slight twist. Each of these blocks is also a semi-finished musical piece in itself and when combined with other blocks, becomes complete. All you have to do is to put together a few of these blocks, with some musical imagination ofcourse, and voila! you have a song ready.
GarageBand, and the many copycats that will follow, will spawn a new generation of musicians. The long tail (made famous by Chris Anderson) suddenly got way longer.
PS : Here's one song that i created in an hour or so .... enjoy!
Also, see the link below to find out how the pros do it ... no one better than Sir Paul McCartney, right !
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