Administrative Sparkle Blog

Music transcends language, cultures, financial divisions.  It brings people together and it can tear people apart.  We attach a song or artist to a particular time in our life.  Music can define the great joys in our lives, as well as our lowest points. Music uplifts me when I’m feeling down or calms me down after a workout or a long day at work. Music pumps me up for my workout or when I’m getting ready to go out on the town. Music can inspire and empower me to do whatever I want.

I love music and am fortunate to be able to play some in the background when I’m working.  I keep a nice collection of music on my iPod, but am not very good at creating “playlists.”  If you use the Genius feature in your iTunes, it will give you a nice selection of other bands or songs you might enjoy in the Genius sidebar. Genius also has within its features the ability to put together a mix of songs and great playlists from your existing music collection.

When your collection has become so varied it is easy to forget about what you already have out there. Occasionally I would come across a song I love and put it in My Top Rated. But I feel like I’m missing out on the vast selection that I have to pick from. This feature selects a random collection that is similar to the one you would like to hear more of. It’s fun and you will find that you have a more interesting collection than you thought.

Just follow these simple steps to create your very own playlists for work, home, that romantic evening, exercising, meditating.

1. Select your song.
2. Right mouse click on your selected song to reveal the menu.
3. Click on Start Genius.

That’s all there is to consolidating a list of songs from your library that matches that song. It creates a list of 25 songs. To create the Playlist of the songs from the selection displayed:

1. Either highlight each song you would like included by pointing and clicking using your mouse and holding down the Ctrl key to select individually or the Shift key to select entire blocks of songs. I generally like my selection and use the key combination Ctrl+A to select the entire collection.
2. In the Menu bar select File.
3. In the File menu select New Playlist from Selection or without using the Menu system press Ctrl+Shift+N.
4. The Playlist menu to the left of your song selection will display a new Playlist ready for you to give it a name.
5. Type in the name of your new Playlist.

That’s it and your done. Sync your device and you are ready to go. Now start enjoying more of the music you already have. You’ll be delightfully surprised and open yourself up to an even larger array of music that may become some of your favorites as it mixes up the various Genres in your collection.

Instead of being the one who comments in conversation about music that is in the current mainstream at the moment, you will be able to suggest some music that others have not heard before and may enjoy as much as you do. You’ll have some really cool Playlists to enjoy when you have company over and don’t know what to play in the background.