Sure, we've all seen them hovering up there on the Itunes file menu: Smart Playlists. But my brain hurts, I can't know how to do that. Well, this is a case of spending 5 minutes to make your music listening life better. Follow along with me and we'll make a simple Smart playlist that will play just your favorite songs. So here we go....

Press the three keys Ctrl-Alt-N together (Option-Command-N for MAC). You'll see the new Smart Playlist dialog box. Leave Match the Following rule checked, then select the down arrow next to Artist and select Play Count from the drop-down list. Next, click on is and select is greater than. Put a number where the 0 is, lets start with 8 for giggles, you can adjust this number later.

Select the + to the far right of that line to make a new rule. This time change Artist to Skip Count and select the qualifier next to it as is less than. Now put in a number like 3 for starters. Leave everything else at the default and click on OK. Now give the playlist a name, like Favs.

What did we just do? Well we made a playlist that will always include only songs you have played (to the end) 8 times, but have not skipped (hit next before the end of the song) more than 3 times. What should be on this list is songs your playing alot, but not sick of yet. You may have to adjust the 8 and 3 in your playlist to get the number of songs you want on the playlist, but you are on your way. You can edit the playlist anytime by right clicking on it in the playlist display. Try adding a third rule line that limits the Genre to Country or what ever you like.

HFP

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