*** Part of an ongoing series of TOOLS TO ENJOY MORE MUSIC *****
I will attempt to profile great avenues of finding, listening to, and downloading new music, to help you, the music fan, get more out of your listening experience.
This week's entry further explores the Smart Playlist. I started into this topic back at the beginning of the blog: Check out the smart playlist - tools to enjoy more music. Today, however I will go deeper and give a specific example that many of you can take advantage of.
Let's start off with a refresher. Playlists in iTunes are just like making an old school mix tape. A SMART PLAYLIST is based on variables that you set. They can be live updating, to allow it to change as you are using your device, but they are meant to be updated as your music collection updates. So, for example."My Top Rated" will be any number of ***** songs, rather than what you added into the playlist on day one!
Today's playlist is a two part item. One playlist will be based on the other. First let's start with DAVE MATTHEWS ALL. Many folks have similar collections as mine, where there is Dave Matthews Band, Dave Matthews and Friends, or Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds. You might even have some mislabeled Dave Matthews. To have all of those in the same playlist, you could set a basic playlist, and update it each time you add to your collection or set a Smart Playlist. In iTunes go to FILE, and select New Smart Playlist. Keep the check mark in the first box "match the following rule". The first box initially reads ARTIST, followed by CONTAINS, and nothing in the third box. Change CONTAINS to IS, and write in Dave Matthews in the third box. Next hit the plus sign on the right side of this box. If you notice "match the following rule" changed to "match ALL of the following rules", this is good, keep it that way. Again, switch CONTAINS to IS, and write in Dave Matthews Band in the third row. Hit the plus sign at the end of the row, repeating steps to add Dave Matthews and Friends, and Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds. If you don't have all 4 variations in your collection, don't worry as some day you will (we hope). Now you have a playlist that has any songs by Dave Matthews in your collection. The moment you add another Dave Matthews track to your collection, it will also be added to this playlist.
Now, to make this even better: start another new Smart Playlist FILE--> NEW SMART PLAYIST. You will start by changing ARTIST to PLAYLIST. Keep the second box as IS. In the third box, scroll down until you find whatever you named your above Dave Matthews Smart Playlist. Mine is Dave All. Next is the important step; hit the plus sign on the right. On the second line, switch ARTIST to RATING, leave IS in the second box, and have the third box be *****. You now have a Smart Playlist that has All Dave variations, but only the best songs! Congrats and enjoy your Dave hit list.
But what happens when my songs aren't rated. Well, I think you are severely missing out. As many of you readers have figured out, I am pretty nerd-tastic when it comes to music. I take my listening and categorizing very seriously. If you are listening to my iPod or iTunes, I do get annoyed if the song gets skipped before the end, as it doesn't register a play count otherwise. I also get annoyed, if were listening to music together, and a song doesn't get rated if it was previously was unrated.
To avoid future scrutiny, skip to the next post and I will teach you my rating system.
Enjoy Dave Best of. If you have any exciting extrapolations of this method, please comment below with your suggestions!
I will attempt to profile great avenues of finding, listening to, and downloading new music, to help you, the music fan, get more out of your listening experience.
This week's entry further explores the Smart Playlist. I started into this topic back at the beginning of the blog: Check out the smart playlist - tools to enjoy more music. Today, however I will go deeper and give a specific example that many of you can take advantage of.
Let's start off with a refresher. Playlists in iTunes are just like making an old school mix tape. A SMART PLAYLIST is based on variables that you set. They can be live updating, to allow it to change as you are using your device, but they are meant to be updated as your music collection updates. So, for example."My Top Rated" will be any number of ***** songs, rather than what you added into the playlist on day one!
Today's playlist is a two part item. One playlist will be based on the other. First let's start with DAVE MATTHEWS ALL. Many folks have similar collections as mine, where there is Dave Matthews Band, Dave Matthews and Friends, or Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds. You might even have some mislabeled Dave Matthews. To have all of those in the same playlist, you could set a basic playlist, and update it each time you add to your collection or set a Smart Playlist. In iTunes go to FILE, and select New Smart Playlist. Keep the check mark in the first box "match the following rule". The first box initially reads ARTIST, followed by CONTAINS, and nothing in the third box. Change CONTAINS to IS, and write in Dave Matthews in the third box. Next hit the plus sign on the right side of this box. If you notice "match the following rule" changed to "match ALL of the following rules", this is good, keep it that way. Again, switch CONTAINS to IS, and write in Dave Matthews Band in the third row. Hit the plus sign at the end of the row, repeating steps to add Dave Matthews and Friends, and Dave Matthews and Tim Reynolds. If you don't have all 4 variations in your collection, don't worry as some day you will (we hope). Now you have a playlist that has any songs by Dave Matthews in your collection. The moment you add another Dave Matthews track to your collection, it will also be added to this playlist.
Now, to make this even better: start another new Smart Playlist FILE--> NEW SMART PLAYIST. You will start by changing ARTIST to PLAYLIST. Keep the second box as IS. In the third box, scroll down until you find whatever you named your above Dave Matthews Smart Playlist. Mine is Dave All. Next is the important step; hit the plus sign on the right. On the second line, switch ARTIST to RATING, leave IS in the second box, and have the third box be *****. You now have a Smart Playlist that has All Dave variations, but only the best songs! Congrats and enjoy your Dave hit list.
But what happens when my songs aren't rated. Well, I think you are severely missing out. As many of you readers have figured out, I am pretty nerd-tastic when it comes to music. I take my listening and categorizing very seriously. If you are listening to my iPod or iTunes, I do get annoyed if the song gets skipped before the end, as it doesn't register a play count otherwise. I also get annoyed, if were listening to music together, and a song doesn't get rated if it was previously was unrated.
To avoid future scrutiny, skip to the next post and I will teach you my rating system.
Enjoy Dave Best of. If you have any exciting extrapolations of this method, please comment below with your suggestions!
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