-
Step 1
Listen to every CD that you own at your convenience. This could take a while! In your musical journey, you'll come across CDs you played way too often, misunderstood at first listen, or somehow lost in the stack. It's been a few months or years for some of this stuff, and suddenly you're rediscovering the music on your own shelves.
-
Step 2
As you listen to each CD, jot down the standout tracks. Clearly these belong in heavy rotation on your own personal hit parade.
-
Step 3
Even as these new discoveries leap out at you, consider now you'd categorize them. Music for driving, housecleaning or bookkeeping? Guide your choices with some general ideas of how you'd use this music.
-
Step 4
Make an iTunes folder for each playlist or category. It's as easy as going to File > New Playlist and then inventing a title for each folder that appears.
-
Step 5
Put the CD into your computer, and click "No" if it you get a prompt about whether or not to import the whole thing. You don't want the whole thing. That's the point. What you want is to drag each preferred song directly into the folder where it belongs.
-
Step 6
When you've exhausted your own collection, borrow CDs from other people and repeat steps 2 through 5. The recording industry would call this piracy, but as long as you're not excessively recopying any one thing, and as long as no money changes hands, what can they do?
-
Step 7
Frequently load new material onto your iPod, or play your desktop iTunes on Party Shuffle. Enjoy your ever-expanding iTunes library.
