Adopting the tried and tested approach
Tracks are one of the most fundamental GarageBand concepts, and can be thought of as containers for the individual constituent parts (called Regions) that make up a complete audio piece. There are two different sorts of track; a Real Instrument track is used to make real audio recordings, while a Software Instrument track simply holds musical instructions which control and play an instance of a virtual software-based instrument.
Regions on a Real Instrument track visualise the waveform of the recorded material, while Regions on a Software Instrument track display the notes making up the sequence as a series of lines. Tracks can be added to a project using the commands in the Track menu.
A track can be selected by clicking on the Track Header, but only one track can be selected at any one time. Recordings are always made into the currently selected track. Each song contains a special Master Track, which contains no Regions and controls the overall sound of a song (the master volume, for example); you can choose to show or hide the Master Track using the commands in the Track menu.
Track Icons
The icons which appear at the left hand-edge of each track are more than superfluous eye-candy; they can be very useful for quickly identifying individual parts at a glance, especially when working with larger arrangements. The icon for each track can be changed via the Track Info window.
