I believe that the biggest problem newbies have with DAWs is the lack of context...a few things they should realize:
1. All DAWs basically accomplish the same things, and 90% or more of the individual tasks are done the same for each of these
2. Music production is different than just "playing in a band"...an introduction to this is useful. My favorite is:
https://www.coursera.org/learn/music-production/home/welcome (the Berklee free course). Even though I have been recording music since the late 60s and using Cakewalk products since the 80s, I found it useful when I took it a couple years back...it provides a thought framework. 
3. Overview education certainly IS lacking at the Cakewalk site...most of the stuff is down in the weeds. A tool that I have found useful for all kinds of things is Groove3 (groove3.com). It costs money, but there are some great SONAR courses there (the Eli Krantzberg stuff) as well as overview tutorials of many other DAWs. If you watch for a sale, you can get a year of "All You Can Eat" education for as low as $79. There is also a lot of instrument education as well as learning about synths and programming drum machines. Plenty of Ableton stuff as well as lots of miking and recording techniques that are DAW-independent, but point you at the important features. 
 
Depends on what your time is worth, but for me, every hour I spend watching a focused tutorial saves my two hours within a couple of weeks. 

I agree that Groove 3 (Sonar Explained) is worth every penny.  Watch every video a couple of times and you'll be in good shape.
 
As alluded to in my previous comments, most mainstream DAWs designs are skeuomorphic; that is, they are conceptually like an analog console and a tape machine.  The Track View is a visualization of the tracks on a piece of tape. The effects bin, Inspector, and ProChannel are like the channel strip and patch bay.  The console view is like the board. Export is like mix-down to a two-track 1/4" machine.
 
People who worked in 24-track analog studios with large consoles and often recorded pre-programmed MIDI instruments and drum machines just have to learn which functions map to which hardware components.  Once that is out of the way, it is not hard to add in Melodyne and other things that did not exist in the physical world. Cut/Copy/Paste did not exist in the tape world, but we all understand that from other software.
 
In the early days of Pro Tools, the software basically just replaced the tape machine.
 
For a new generation, this may or may not make sense and I wonder how long we should continue with the old model.
 

konradh
For a new generation, this may or may not make sense and I wonder how long we should continue with the old model.

I absolutely agree with this -- at least with the question.  I am nor certain of the answer, but I do think it is a bad business plan to cling to a model that probably 90% of the future customers will have no knowledge of.
 
This problem is really pervasive because those who know the most about sound engineering did actually work in these classic hardware fortresses that barely exist today.  And this mentality is carried forward in the language, that I believe hurts more than it helps.  As I came to the DAW world, I feel like a wasted a lot of time trying to understand what people were talking about under the banner of "mixing" and "mastering".  These are extremely misleading, counter-productive terms, IMHO, and they grossly under-value what DAWs do today.
 
When the average person hears "mixing" they think of pushing faders and little else.  In fact "mixing has evolved to be a vast discipline.  I think it would much better to call it "track coloration, integration, and balance" although that doesn't roll off the tongue very well.  But is most certainly isn't about pushing faders around (not most of the time anyway.)
 
Likewise, what is "mastering"?  The term came from the era when the main job was to prepare the recording to work on the physical media -- or to package the material into the "master" copy.  It was mostly about getting the right overall sound level so that the material was loud enough but not so loud as to make the needle skip.  And later it was about putting the material into the right format for physical CD replication.  But the thing we call "mastering" is actually a lot broader than that today.  It is a combination of final coloring of the stereo mix and preparing the material to be optimal on many different distribution media.  I don't think "mastering" is a relevant, meaningful word for this anymore.
 
Somebody should come up with better terminology than "tracking," "mixing," and "mastering."

F1 works in many cases, but not everywhere. For instance, on Pro Channel, open the equalizer and press F1. When I do that, I get a generic help topic on the track view. likewise, if I open, say, the convolution reverb on the Pro Channel, I likewise don't get anything specific on using that reverb. Again we are on the same page. F1 is fine as a way to invoke the help. It's just that I would like to see it become a convention in designing effects that they integrate with the help system so that no matter where you are, you get context sensitive help.  Some of it works pretty well, don't get me wrong. I was just saying what would make a DAW easier to use in my estimation.  I do realize how awesome Sonar is and how much thought goes into improving every aspect of it. I was looking at the Lenses feature today. That is a lot like what I was asking for in the first post, if there were a few more "preset" lenses for newbies or specific task flows.  That would be pretty easy to accomplish and that will probably happen as time goes by.

Yes, that's one idea that might be useful.

CHORDS!
Alot of us can imagine a nice melody or a hook, but for many of us it is in the cords department that we are lacking. Sometimes it is a question of chord choices that will determine how good the music is. Chords are inspiration and the building blocks of any song.
All the compressors and EQs and synths will not help a musician as much as the ability to express himself better and faster and access chords that he would have never used because he just dosent have the knowlage of them.
 
I wish there was a midi feature that would map chords to different keys. I imagined the following system: There are 76 keys on a keyboard. Imagine if each was a chord, spread out left and right from central C. The closer to C, the more relevent, the farthest the more distant. This feature would work as a midi plugin. First you determine the base tonality of your song, either major or minor, then you assign it to central C. Then, playing around the keys would give you a multitude of chords that would be recorded on a midi  track. I can easily imagine so many songwriters and producers using this feature as a comporing tool and thanking Cakewalk each time they use it... I know i wold

zblip2@gmail.com
Alot of us can imagine a nice melody or a hook, but for many of us it is in the cords department that we are lacking. Sometimes it is a question of chord choices that will determine how good the music is. Chords are inspiration and the building blocks of any song.

Have you tried this one?  I have not, but have wondered if it is useful at all.
http://www.re-compose.com...es-music-software.html

zblip2@gmail.com
CHORDS!
Alot of us can imagine a nice melody or a hook, but for many of us it is in the cords department that we are lacking. Sometimes it is a question of chord choices that will determine how good the music is. Chords are inspiration and the building blocks of any song.
All the compressors and EQs and synths will not help a musician as much as the ability to express himself better and faster and access chords that he would have never used because he just dosent have the knowlage of them.
 
I wish there was a midi feature that would map chords to different keys. I imagined the following system: There are 76 keys on a keyboard. Imagine if each was a chord, spread out left and right from central C. The closer to C, the more relevent, the farthest the more distant. This feature would work as a midi plugin. First you determine the base tonality of your song, either major or minor, then you assign it to central C. Then, playing around the keys would give you a multitude of chords that would be recorded on a midi  track. I can easily imagine so many songwriters and producers using this feature as a comporing tool and thanking Cakewalk each time they use it... I know i wold

There are plugins for this.
 
Try the free Tonespace http://www.mucoder.net/en/tonespace/
 
Cthulu is only $39  https://www.xferrecords.com/products/cthulhu
 
But I will add that I checked out the demo of Cubase Elements 9, and found the chord functions with circle of fifths assistant in that very interesting.  It's only $99.  https://www.steinberg.net...e/cubase_elements.html
"Composing music consists of finding an idea that you can elaborate into a full music composition. Cubase Elements makes it easy to harmonize and arrange your music with the innovative and unique Chord Pads and Arranger Track."

I have gotten most of my sequencer knowledge from Craig Anderton and Scott Garrigus' Sonar Power Books. I read and try new things. I learned long ago to approach my sequencer as another musical instrument. I "practice" with it. I don't wait until I am doing a project to learn how to do something new. I practice with little "excercises" just as I would with my instruments. When I get stuck, I go to the book (the glossary) and look it up. Perhaps this sounds old fashioned, but it works, in that I learn at MY PACE rather than a video. It might be good if Sonar and others would list all books about their DAW  somewhere so that the learner could see how different authors accomplish the same problems. I am a musician, so my most learning is about editing, saving time, mixing, etc. Thank you to all the authors and teachers who have tried to make new things more understandable, especially Craig and Scott.
Jack the Quiet Bear

A quick reply to those looking for quick knowledge. Learn about scales (Major Scale). All music comes from scales. Once understood, most all other questions can be answered be thinking in terms of the scale that your music actually comes from.
Jack the Quiet Bear