We will be using Ableton Live 9 later in the semester and this link will provide a lot of valuable tutorials to help answer some of the questions you may have about using Live 9.
From the official site and has videos for these:
Setting up an audio interface
Setting up a MIDI controller
Recording audio
MIDI beats and melodies
Working with Session View
Session View to Arrangement View
Exporting audio
Optimizing your audio interface setup
This is a third tool like Garageband that creates layered tracks. The feature that makes this tool unique is "the revolutionary Session View: a unique sketchpad for improvising, playing and performing with musical ideas, without the constraints of the timeline. Freely and independently start and stop any number of audio or MIDI loops - everything stays in sync."