In Beginner, a song is built from pieces: your voice, a guitar, a melody or a bass line on the keys, a beat. You record a piece in one part of the song, then decide where else it goes — every chorus, say.

  1. At the top of the home is your song as lanes: one for the chords, the beat, each melody or bass line, and each recording. Every piece is a bar in its lane, with what's in it drawn inside — the chord names, the drum hits, the notes, or the wave of a recording. Slide sideways to see the rest of the song. Pinch with two fingers (or tap the − and + magnifiers) to zoom: all the way out shows the whole song on the screen.
  2. Tap a part's name along the top to choose it: it lights up down every lane. Play from here plays the song from that part; Loop it plays it round and round.
  3. Above the lanes, the whole song is a thin band. Tap Open and it becomes a card for each part, with its lanes drawn small inside — tap a card to jump to that part.
  4. In the part you chose, a lane with nothing in it shows a dashed + Record here: tap it to record that lane's instrument or voice just there.
  5. Tap Record a piece in the Verse (or whichever part you chose), and pick what it is: Sing, Play an instrument, A melody or a bass line on the keys, or A beat — or, with just your voice, Hum a melody, Hum a bass line or Beatbox a beat.
  6. Humming or beatboxing: after the count-in, hum or beatbox over the clicks. What you hummed becomes that part's own melody or bass line; a beatboxed beat becomes that part's own beat.
  7. Singing or playing: the song plays from a bar before the part, you record over it, and it stops by itself at the part's end. A red dashed box shows where it will go; once you're recording, your wave grows inside it in red as you play. Headphones keep the music out of the microphone.
  8. A melody or bass line on the keys: the part goes round and round while you play — play it as many times as you like, then tap Stop. The Record button says where it'll play: your first melody plays in the parts like the one you recorded it over (every chorus, say), and Where should it play? adds more.
  9. Opened your voice (or an instrument) straight from the home? Where it goes, above the big button, says where the take lands: Into a part — the part you picked on the song map, or tap its name to pick another — or Anywhere, from where the song is for as long as you like.
  10. Then How was that? Hear it alone or in the song, Keep it or Try again. Make it louder or softer, and for your voice, Clean it up or In tune.
  11. Where should it play? A card for each part shows what's in it, with this piece's lane picked out. Tap the cards it should play in — the part you recorded it in is already ticked. Every chorus and Every verse put it in all of them at once. Tap a ticked card to take it out of that part. A part that already has a take gets the new one, and the old one is kept as an earlier take.
  12. Changed your mind later? Tap a piece's bar in its lane for the same card — hear it, change where it plays, record it again, or take it out of the song. Or touch and hold its bar and drag it onto another part: let go and it plays there too. A recording that plays in more than one part shows ×2 (or ×3…). Under the lanes, pieces that aren't in the chosen part yet are listed: tap one to add it.
  13. A beat: tap its bar and Edit the beat. The Beat page opens on the part you chose, and its grid is the beat that part plays. Hop to another part along the top (on a phone, the ‹ › arrows or the part's name). Play plays that part round and round; Whole song plays it all.
  14. The Chorus plays: Same as the other parts, or A beat of its own. On the same beat, a change changes every part that plays it, and the page says so. Tap A beat of its own for a beat just for the Chorus (and each time it comes round) — start from the song's beat, a busier or simpler version, or empty. Tap Same as the other parts to put it back. Its bar in the beat lane says which beat it is (Busier Chorus Beat, say). The Bass and Melody pages work the same way.
  15. A page that opens recording shows a red strip at the top — Recording the Chorus — with Stop, and the keys right under it.