How to Organize Your Music

iTunes has created a couple of nifty ways to get your music organized - Playlists and Smart Playlists.

Now that you have your music files imported into iTunes, look across the top row and  you’ll see the Name, Time, Artist, Album, Genre, My Rating, Play Count and Last Played columns. The only column you have to fill in is the ‘My Rating’.  The rest are already filled.

A Playlist is a list of songs that you group into one folder. Why would you want to do this? Well, because you can take your music collection and pick whichever songs you want to play together.

In the past, we’ve been used to playing an entire album. More recently, you could burn your own CD with a choice of songs on it. The limitations to burning a CD is the amount of songs  you can put on one disc. If you want a different selection, you had  to make a new CD. Those days are over thanks to Apple’s iTunes and iPod.

How to create a Playlist

• Click on the plus sign icon in the lower left corner.
• You’ll see a new icon on the left side of the iTunes window.
• Give your new Playlist a name.
• From the main Library, choose a song or group of songs.
• Drag and drop the song into the new Playlist

You can make a list for driving with upbeat songs to keep you wake you up for your drive in the morning. Another one with relaxing music for the trip home.

Playlists can be created, deleted and changed to suit your mood. Make as many as you want.

Smart Playlists are Playlists on steriods. This is where all those categories you see listed across the top of iTunes come in handy.

How to Create a Smart Playlist

• Click on "File" at the very top
• Choose "New Smart Playlist. "

You’ll be given a pop-up window to enter info you want iTunes to match.

• At the very top of that window you’ll see a check box to Match the rules.
• If you add more than one rule, be sure to choose between "Any" or "All"

Then you’ll see a row with 3 columns of boxes.

• In the first box, make a choice - it’s a long list
• The next choice is a drop down list where you can choose ‘contains’, ‘does not contain’, ’starts with’ and more.
• The last field is for you to fill in what you want the match to be.
• The + sign will allow you to make another row with more choices you want matched.
• You can add as many rows as you want.

For instance, you want to make a Smart Playlist with some music you haven’t listened to for a couple of months. You would choose ‘Last Played’ - ‘Is Before’ - enter a date. Or perhaps you want a list with songs that are over 5 minutes long.

Or songs that start with the letter ‘I’ , the letter ‘P’,the letter ‘O’ and the letter ‘D’.

Another nice feature of Smart Playlists is they update automatically if you add new music to your iTunes library thru new CD’s or from the iTunes Store.

Playlists are great. They’re like having your own personal radio station set to play the music YOU want to listen to. I like many tracks on albums that weren’t the hits you heard on the radio. Those are the ones I prefer to play. And maybe throw in a few ‘hits’ from time to time.

The possibilities are endless. Play around with it, change it often, make a lot.

One important step left for beginners - get your music into your iPod.