What exactly are the blue bars?

[zorg]

What do the blue bars represent, other than volume amplitude? Anything? They don't seem to be sound waves that change with the timbre of the sound (sine, square, etc.).

[kozikowski]

The green bouncing bars represent the sound volume on playback and the red bars on record. The blue wavy lines represent the actual sound sample points drawn as a graph. If you keep magnifying the blue waves, eventually, you'll get down to the PCM sample points which look like little squares on the wave.

Generic Audacity:
http://kozco.com/tech/audacity/Audacity1_playback.jpg

That's what a normal, standard Audacity is supposed to look. Your tools may be a different size or in different places. That is a perfectly record piano solo and those are normal graphics.

Koz