You can "plot" notes in Garageband using one of Garageband's software instruments and your mouse or the keyboard.
Lesson 1:
Open a new song in Garageband. The Grand Piano Software instrument is created by default, ready and waiting.
If you want to type in notes using your computer's keyboard, select Window from the menu bar and chose Musical Typing. A new window will appear, overlapping the main Garageband window, showing which keys on the computer keyboard correspond to each note. Or, if you're more of a mouse person, you can choose Keyboard located in the same Window menu, and, similar to musical typing window, a music keyboard layout will appear where you can point and click the notes on the keyboard with your mouse.
Using your weapon of choice, press record and type, click, plot, and plunk away. Press the stop button when you're done - or when the cat runs out of the room, whichever comes first.
Lesson 2:
After your budding, soon-to-be-discovered masterpiece is recorded, unlikely as it may seem, you may want to "tweak" (as the pros say) what you have just typed (or clicked) by selecting the track and pressing the track edit button. There are two ways to edit: the graphic format which displays the notes as bar-shaped rectangles of various lengths where you select one (or more) notes and reposition it to a new starting point anywhere you want - go nuts! If you drag one up or down, you will hear the new note played that corresponds to where you are dragging. You can also change the length of any note by clicking and dragging the end of it's rectangle to make it longer or shorter. If you understand musical notation, the other way to edit is by notation view, where you can also select and drag notes around and also change their value by using standard musical notation. Select the musical note icon located in the bottom of the track editor window if you prefer this method.
