How to Play Piano on a Mac

Playing piano on a Mac is easy with the help of GarageBand, a free audio-recording software program that comes installed on every Macintosh computer. Thanks to GarageBand's "Musical Typing" feature, an external keyboard is not required to be able to play piano on a Mac.

Things You'll Need

• Macintosh computer
• GarageBand

Instructions

1. Open GarageBand.

2. Click "File," "New," and select "New Music Project."

3. Name the project "Play Piano on a Mac," and click "Create." A new GarageBand session will open. By default, this session will contain an instrumental track that is set to "Grand Piano." To change the default "Grand Piano" track to another type of piano, click on the track, click the "View/Hide Track Info" button, and select another virtual piano from the "Pianos and Keyboards" category. When happy with your selection, click the "View/Hide Track Info" button again to hide this menu.

4. Click "Menu," and select "Musical Typing." After doing so, a dialogue box will pop up showing you which keys on your keyboard correspond to which keys on a piano.

5. Press the corresponding keys on your keyboard to play piano. To record your performance, press the "Record" button at the bottom of GarageBand. When you are finished, press the spacebar to stop recording.

6. Save your track by clicking "File," and "Save." You have now successfully played piano on a Mac (see reference 1).

References

• GarageBand: Getting Started