iMovie - timing a slideshow to music

The other day I started putting together a slideshow on iMovie (not iMovie 2) and am having a blast making photos blend into each other. I have lots of tricks up my sleeve photo-wise since I am proficient in Photoshop.

But now I want to add music, and it is not as easy as I hoped. I don’t want to simply play a song throughout the entire slideshow. I want to time the movement of the slides to the music. I also want to have the songs blend into each other; I don’t want to simply play one song and then another.

My guess is that I need to use another program to edit the music how I want it, and then apply this music to my slideshow.

So here are my questions:

  1. Do iMovie or iTunes have the music editing capabilities that I am looking for? If not, what program does?
  2. How can I time the slides to go with the music? Do I insert the music first, then tailor the slides to fit?

Thank you very much for your input. I love this program!

Wow- I guess there’s not too many iMovie specialists around!