[SCA-Dance] Laptop music programs?

[White, John]

> From: Charlene Charette
> 
> I store my music in Windows using iTunes and use my iPod instead of my
> laptop for playing. 
> 
> --Perronnelle
> 
Add another one to the iTunes/iPod chorus.  The ability to create both smart and
dumb playlists - the former to allow automatic inclusion, the latter to allow me
to create and order a playlist as I wish - is fantastic, though I really wish at
times that it allowed multi-level lists (i.e. lists within lists ...).

In addition, playlists allow for the creation of music for dances that vary in
length by the number of people dancing without creating a single piece of music
for every possible circumstance - by creating building blocks out of the music
(either a single repeat, or perhaps a minimum of 3 repeats, one for intro, one
for outtro, one for everything in between, or if you're willing, blocks of several
repeats to make the building easier) and stacking those blocks (or multiple versions
of those blocks) as required in the playlist, you can create enough music to do
Friar and the Nun for 3, 4, or 5 couples.  And while the use of an iPod to play the
music at a practice is limiting, with a laptop you could create a version on the
fly for 7 or 9 or 31 if you needed to!

Also, as I found at KWDS, the laptop allows for the ability to create faster (or slower)
versions of your music as required, with the addition of a program that can do that
(like Audacity, my music-manipulator of choice).  But the iPod is likely to be much
more portable than the 11 lb laptop, or even a netbook. 

I did have to upgrade my iPod when I filled the old one up ... the replacement is a few
years old now, though, and still has plenty of room even with all of the other music I've
got on it besides the dance stuff.

(To be fair, I have no idea whether Windows Media Player has the same playlist capabilities
as iTunes - it probably does, since MS seems prone to "borrowing" good ideas from Apple
at every opportunity.  And, of course, iTunes works on Windows.  Ubuntu is just a funny 
word to me, though.)

Good luck!

         \\Dafydd C