Want to add a musical score to your video? iMovie’s got you covered

What You’ll Need:

>> iMovie ‘11 version 9.0 or later
>> a project in progress
>> a basic understanding of the interface
>> 25 Minutes

Difficulty: Easy

Like any other video editing program, iMovie is focused primarily on the visuals: you can see your clips broken down into a series of thumbnails, apply visual effects to them, alter saturation, brightness, contrast, and so on. But what would your favorite movie be without the musical score? Music is what makes your audience engage with the scene emotionally and without it, your movie can lead to a very bland experience.

Thankfully, iMovie doesn’t disappoint on this front and you can browse through your iTunes library to add a track of your choice (as long as it’s not a song encumbered with digital rights management – i.e., protected), or even drag your own creation made with programs like GarageBand straight from the Finder onto your film. Unlike video clips, you can add any audio to a project without having to import it via iMovie’s File > Import feature.

Make your movie more lively with a music track.

One thing you may notice though is that if you drag some music into your project, it will be added automatically as a background track – this means that you’ll hear it over the entire project. You can trim it of course, but what if you wanted the music to play only over a certain section? You can do this, but it requires you to perform a different function and ‘pin’ the music to a clip.

This tutorial is designed to show you how to achieve all of this. We’ll start by working with a background track, show you how to trim it and even remove it if you’ve changed your mind; then we’ll show you how to pin a track to a clip (which means that if you move that clip, your music will move along with it) and even explore the various sound effects that come pre-installed with iMovie. All you need is a project of your own already underway and we’ll be ready to begin.

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How to Add Music to Your Project in iMovie

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  1. Reveal Your Music

  In iMovie, go to Window > Music and Sound Effects. From there, you have access to songs created in GarageBand or available in iTunes. Select a track either by scrolling through the list or by using the search field at the bottom.

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  2. Into the Background

  Drag your song over your project and notice that the entire background turns green. When that happens, release your mouse and the track will have been added to your movie. It will play from the beginning until the end of the film or the song, whichever comes first.

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  3. Trim and Edit

  In your project, to the left of the track’s name is a cog wheel button. Click it and choose Clip Trimmer. The bottom half of the interface is replaced with the music’s waveform. Use this section to trim your song so you only hear the part you wish, by dragging the yellow handles.

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  4. A Banner for a Song

  Click Done. Having the song at the start may work for some projects but not others. To remove it from your project, select it to get a yellow highlight around your entire project, then hit the Delete key. Choose another song and this time, drag it over a clip in your project.

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  5. Trim the Project

  The green banner represents your song. You can now drag that banner wherever you want so the music will start at a specified point. It still has a cog wheel, so you can trim it in a window; or mouse over its edge to turn the cursor into a resize tool. Drag inwards to trim it.

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  6. Seeing Waves

  You can quickly trim the audio that way, but without the waveforms, it’s a bit of a hit and miss affair. Thankfully, iMovie ‘11 introduced a waveform view in the project section. To activate it, click the Show and Hide Waveforms button, lower-right of that section.

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  7. Fade Markers

  Mouse over the music for a little grey marker near the start and end of your track. This is a fade: by default, your track will fade in to full volume and out to mute in half a second. Drag the markers to adjust. Drag the first one left to remove fade; drag right to extend it.

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  8. Inspector Controls

  If you need more control, double-click the track to open the Inspector window. From there, select the Audio tab. You’ll be able to raise or lower the volume of the entire track, manipulate the fades with sliders and reduce any background noise if there is any.

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  Quick Tip

  iMovie ‘11 comes with 19 audio effects which you can apply to any audio track, including music. Select a track and reveal the Inspector. Click on the Audio Effect button. Hover the mouse over an effect to hear your track with it applied.

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