How do you change chords in middle of project? For ex. E for 8 bars then A

Question

Hey now! I'm working on a garageband project and i'm wondering how to change chords.
For ex. (using the garage band guitars) E for 8 bars then A for 4 bars, back to E for 4 bars etc..
Also, when you pick a instrument that already has an assigned key ex. organ w/assigned key of A,
and your project is in the key of E, does the organ now record in E? Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

Let me comment on the case where your composition requires 8 bars E major chord, 4 bars A major, 4 bars E major. I assume that you want some prerecorded loops that comes with garageband for this.
You go about it slightly differently wether your track is a software instrument track or it is audio loop. ( green or blue respectively in the loop browser). In either cases you may find a loop that play more than one chord or some that play only one chord. It is easiest (both to do and to explain) to use a loop with one chord only. Use your ear to judge. Lets say you drag it to the area below the lowest defined track, that will create a new track with an instrument definition suitable for your loop. You may then double check that it actually playes the chord you want, use your ear. You may then drag at the end of the loop to stretch it over the first 8 bars.
The on to your next 4 bars of A:
You may find another pattern i the loop browser that actually plays the chord A. Then you drag that to your arrangement. If not you can copy the 8 first bars; Select them, press alt (or option) while dragging the section, that copies it. Then just adjust the end so the total length is 4 bars; But now these are the E major chord and not the A, so you need to transpose those 4 bars. You will need to transpose as many half steps as there are between E and A?;( you can count that out by the musical keyboard of garageband.) If your loops are software instruments you can do the transposition two ways. In either case double click the 4 bar region to open the note editor. You can either i) just fill in the number of half steps (5) in the small box on the left labeled 'Pitch' or ii) select all notes ( by cmd-A) and aim at one of the E notes, Then drag the whole lot of notes until the aimed/target note becomes an A. With the second method you wil see the actual notes that will be played in the editor, in the first not.
If you work with audio loops then your procedures are the same, but you can only transpose by filling in the 'Pitch' box. Use your ear to find what sounds better of transposing by +5 or by -7, both will give you an A chord. Which one will sound best depends upon the chord/key it was recorded in and your preferences