Calling one playlist from another to keep the music fresh.

I listen to iTunes all day long when I’m working in my office. I’m sitting in front of the computer, it has 4,000 songs on it, and there are a pair of stereo speakers attached to it — why wouldn’t I use it to play music while I work?

I usually listen to it with the volume turned down very low. Classic rock and pop. Sometimes, when I need to concentrate — like when a topic I need to write about is complex and I’m having a hard time figuring out how to compose an explanation or instructions — I switch to new age or “smooth jazz.” Or turn it off completely. I can’t listen to podcasts while I work. (I can’t watch CNN and listen to the reporter while I’m reading that stupid ticker at the bottom of the screen, either. But I can chew gum and walk at the same time.)

Anyway, a long time ago, I created a smart playlist that lists 500 my most highly rated rock and pop songs. I’d listen to that while I worked.

If you’ve never created a smart playlist, it’s easy. Here’s how I created mine.

1. In iTunes, choose File > New Smart Playlist (or, on a Mac, press Option-Command-N).
2. In the Smart Playlist dialog that appears, use the pop-up menu and other controls on a line to set up matching criteria. For example, I wanted only rock songs, so I chose Genre from the first pop-up menu and is from the second pop-up menu. Then I entered Rock into the box.
3. If desired, click the + button at the end of the line to add another line of matching criteria. In my example, I also wanted Pop songs, so I choose Genre and is and entered Pop. You can repeat this step as many times as you like to set up search criteria.
   
4. If you have more than two lines of search criteria, choose an option from the pop-up menu at the top of the dialog. All matches all criteria. In my example, if I chose all, iTunes would look for songs that had a genre of Rock and Pop. That’s not possible — in fact you can’t use the all option if two or more lines of matching criteria have the same option chosen from the first pop-up menu. Any, which is what I used, tells iTunes to match any of the criteria — for example a genre of Rock or a genre of Pop. In general, all results in fewer matches than any.
5. To limit the number of songs by other criteria, turn on the Limit to check box, choose an option from the first pop-up menu, and enter a value in the box. For example, you can limit to 500 songs, as I did, or 2 hours, or 3 gigabytes. Then choose an option from the second pop-up menu to indicate how iTunes should narrow down the list of included songs. I chose highest rated.
6. If you only want iTunes to include checked songs, turn on the Match only checked songs check box.
7. I recommend keeping Live Updating checked so that if you add any new songs, they’ll be considered for the playlist. To me, that’s the purpose of a smart playlist — it updates itself automatically.
8. Click OK. The new playlist appears in the Source list with a box around its name. Use this opportunity to change the name to something that makes sense to you. I called mine High Rated Rock.

After a while, I realized that even though I had the random button clicked when I played this playlist, I seemed to be hearing the same songs all the time. At the same time, there were songs I hadn’t heard in weeks or months. Is random really random? I think not.

I decided to try creating a playlist that listed 100 of the least recently played songs from my High Rated Rock playlist. I’d then play that playlist, thus guaranteeing that all the music I was hearing while I worked was “fresh” — at least to me.

1. In iTunes, choose File > New Smart Playlist (or, on a Mac, press Option-Command-N).
2. Set up just one line of matching criteria that references the other playlist you want to draw from. For my example, I chose Playlist, is, High Rated Rock from the three pop-up menus.
3. Turn on the Limit to check box and enter a value that’s smaller than the total number of songs in the playlist you referenced in the previous step. Then choose your matching criteria. I entered 100 and chose least recently played.
   
4. If you only want iTunes to include checked songs, turn on the Match only checked songs check box. Note that you can include both checked and unchecked songs in one playlist and only checked songs in this playlist to further narrow down the selection.
5. Turn on the live updating check box. This is important if you want the list to change each time a song has been played.
6. Click OK. The new playlist appears in the Source list with a box around its name. Change the name to something that makes sense to you. I called mine Fresh Rock.

If you follow these instructions to duplicate my playlists (with your songs, of course), you’ll find that when you play the second playlist, each time a song ends, it disappears from the list and a new song is added. iTunes won’t play the songs in date order if you have the random button enabled while playing that playlist. Instead, it’ll randomly play the 100 least recently played, high rated songs in the genres you specified in the first playlist.

Playing a song from another playlist also modifies the list. Say, for example, that the Pink Floyd’s’ Learning to Fly is on your Fresh Rock playlist. But you’re not playing that playlist today. Today you’re playing all Pink Floyd songs. (Good choice; I do that a lot, too.) When Learning to Fly is finished playing, it disappears from the Fresh Rock playlist because it has been played recently. It just hasn’t been played in the Fresh Rock list.

As you can imagine, you can play around quite a bit with the smart playlist feature. I like it because it keeps me listening to my favorite songs — the ones I haven’t heard lately, that is — without having to touch iTunes’ controls during play.