Earlier in the week, I posted a blog on how to combine multiple smart playlists to create one ultimate playlist. This time, I will take the opportunity to show you some examples of simple smart playlists that can accomplish things that you may not have thought possible with iTunes.
If you are like me, you may have digitized your entire music library. Sure you may save space in your house, but you now have lots of music in your iTunes library that you don't want in your steady rotation. Perhaps you don't want to take the time to weed out the good from the bad. Why not let that selection occur naturally? Let's take this approach...
One thing you may not have known about iTunes, is that it keeps track of how many times you skip a song. You can create a smart playlist, using the conditions, 'Skip Count is less than 3'. You can change the number variable to suit your preferences. I suggest not checking the 'Limit to' box. Essentially, you will start off with a pretty big playlist, containing the majority of your library. As you are listening to your music, and you start skipping the songs you don't want to listen to, they will start to remove themselves from the list. Eventually, you will end up with a playlist that contains only the music that you never skip. If, by accident, a song is removed that you want back in the play list, you can right click the song in iTunes, and select 'reset skip count'.
The playlist method I just described starts you off with a big list, and allows you to narrow down what is available. Another option of achieving the same goal, yet taking a different route, is to create a playlist based on your play count. With this configuration, you will start off with a small amount of music in your playlist. As you listen to music in your main library, whether in iTunes or an iPod, once a song hits a certain amount of plays, it will add itself to your playlist. This playlist method would be the optimal configuration if you want to fill a limited sized playlist for use on an iPod.
One aspect of iTunes that people rarely take advantage of, is the music ratings. As you are listening to your music, you can take the opportunity to rate the song using iTunes' 5 star method. This can be achieved while listening to music on an iPod, by pressing the middle button until you get to the ratings selection. Rating your songs can serve more of a purpose than providing you another way to sort your tracks.
Let's say you are getting tired of the shuffle feature always playing the same songs. Most likely, you have a lot of songs just sitting there, that never get played. Sometimes you forget those songs even existed. You can create a smart playlist that uses conditions based on ratings. In this example, you are creating a playlist with all of your songs that are rated between two and four stars. You can also set your limit to select the 'least often played' items. This will grab any song that you consider average or slightly above average, and only those that rarely get any play. This is a good way of discovering those old tracks that you like, but forgot that you owned.
As always, I encourage you to experiment with iTunes' Smart Playlists, and feel free to share your music concoctions.
If you are like me, you may have digitized your entire music library. Sure you may save space in your house, but you now have lots of music in your iTunes library that you don't want in your steady rotation. Perhaps you don't want to take the time to weed out the good from the bad. Why not let that selection occur naturally? Let's take this approach...
One thing you may not have known about iTunes, is that it keeps track of how many times you skip a song. You can create a smart playlist, using the conditions, 'Skip Count is less than 3'. You can change the number variable to suit your preferences. I suggest not checking the 'Limit to' box. Essentially, you will start off with a pretty big playlist, containing the majority of your library. As you are listening to your music, and you start skipping the songs you don't want to listen to, they will start to remove themselves from the list. Eventually, you will end up with a playlist that contains only the music that you never skip. If, by accident, a song is removed that you want back in the play list, you can right click the song in iTunes, and select 'reset skip count'.
The playlist method I just described starts you off with a big list, and allows you to narrow down what is available. Another option of achieving the same goal, yet taking a different route, is to create a playlist based on your play count. With this configuration, you will start off with a small amount of music in your playlist. As you listen to music in your main library, whether in iTunes or an iPod, once a song hits a certain amount of plays, it will add itself to your playlist. This playlist method would be the optimal configuration if you want to fill a limited sized playlist for use on an iPod.
One aspect of iTunes that people rarely take advantage of, is the music ratings. As you are listening to your music, you can take the opportunity to rate the song using iTunes' 5 star method. This can be achieved while listening to music on an iPod, by pressing the middle button until you get to the ratings selection. Rating your songs can serve more of a purpose than providing you another way to sort your tracks.
Let's say you are getting tired of the shuffle feature always playing the same songs. Most likely, you have a lot of songs just sitting there, that never get played. Sometimes you forget those songs even existed. You can create a smart playlist that uses conditions based on ratings. In this example, you are creating a playlist with all of your songs that are rated between two and four stars. You can also set your limit to select the 'least often played' items. This will grab any song that you consider average or slightly above average, and only those that rarely get any play. This is a good way of discovering those old tracks that you like, but forgot that you owned.
As always, I encourage you to experiment with iTunes' Smart Playlists, and feel free to share your music concoctions.
