Apple announced GarageBand 09 on Tuesday. The big news?

Apple has incorporated music lessons into GarageBand.

GarageBand ’09 introduces Basic Lessons: the easiest way to learn piano and guitar, right on your Mac. Follow along at your own pace with interactive lessons that teach you the fundamentals through HD video instruction, synchronized notation, and animated onscreen instruments.

In addition to basic lessons for guitar and piano, Apple also offers “Artists Lessons” ($4.99 additional) wherein someone can learn from current artists how a tune was built, how certain riffs or licks are played, the thinking behind the song structure, etc.

Right now these look to be professionally filmed. And quite frankly, the selection of artists and styles is rather…limited. But I”m sure the selection will grow. Also – and this is exciting — I can see Apple opening this up into an ‘App Store’ sort of marketplace for folks to sell their own lessons. (EDIT: Ars Technica reports that “Additional lessons, celebrity and otherwise, [emphasis added] will be available for purchase within the “Lesson Store” inside the application after it is available to the public.)

Will you get into conservatory based on these lessons? Doubtful. However this is supremely cool IMHO. Consider the following:

• Schools across the US have cut music electives and programs.

“Practice.”

It’s an old joke, but one that has some truth to it.

After 20+ years with various and sundry keyboards, I finally took the plunge a couple of years ago and started taking formal piano instruction. (If you are interested in music instruction and you live in the DC-MD-VA area, you really owe it to yourself to check out the Levine Music School.) I had always been a proponent of avoiding the “straightjacket of orthodoxy” and discovering music creation on my own or in collaboration with like-minded individuals. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is easier to break the rules if you first know them. And besides, for my personal interests, some of the rules are helpful!

My focus is really on developing my finger dexterity so as to make it easier to write pieces at the piano with more spontaneity. I also am trying to develop a much more formal understanding of theory and harmony as I have aspirations to one day work with film.

But you got to start somewhere, and if you want to also, then Hanon, Hanon Revisited, and Beyer should be your new friends.

The issue of course is finding the time.