How to remove duplicates from your iTunes Library

If you have thousands of songs, you probably have lots of duplicate tracks in your iTunes library.
You might wonder... how did that happend?
Well... may be you've imported the same CD twice, or you converted some files from aiff into mp3 to put into your ipod, or you downloaded the same songs from different sources, or... who knows.

Duplicate tracks can take several gigs of space in your hard drive and make your iTunes library's performance slow down quite noticeable.

Duplicates in iTunes are easy to find. Here's how:
Open iTunes (9.0 or later) and under the File menu you will find the item: Show Duplicates. As an extra feature if you shfit+click on the File Menu (in Windows or you click on the File Menu and then you hit the option key on Mac) the same item changes to: Show Exact Duplicates, which is an excellent feature since duplicate track names doesn't always imply duplicate versions of a song (i.e. a live version and a studio version, etc).

Duplicate tracks are not the problem, though. It's the duplicate files that are taking lots of disk space. Removing duplicate tracks from the disk could save you several gigs of space. If you run the "Show Exact Duplicates" you will get a list of all the tracks that are duplicated in your library therefore: if you delete all the tracks on that list you will get rid of all the tracks! You will not have any versions left!

A manual solution #1: is to choose one by one which one of the duplicates you want to keep, (for example keeping the high quality versions such as aiff and deleting the mp3 versions, or the opposite to save even more space) and delete the rest. For some itunes users with 5000+ duplicates this task could take several days! also taking the risk of deleting a wrong version or even worse, all of the versions.

A manual solution #2: you can highlight all the tracks in your library and drag them from iTunes to a new folder on your drive, which will make a copy of the library without duplicates. Then you can delete all the tracks from the library and you hard drive. Then import the folder back into iTunes. You will need of course, double the amount of space while you do this and you will not be able to make a decision in which files to keep.

mDecks's mDelDupFile for iTunes is a faster and easier approach to eliminate your duplicate tracks and files in your iTunes library without the need for additional space or hours of work and the best feature...
No new application is needed !

Here's how to get your mDelDupFile:
1.Export your Show Exact Duplicates list as a plain text file.
2.Goto our mDelDupFile page and specify your decision criteria in selecting which files to keep.
3. Download your personalized mDelDupFile ( instantly available ) and run it. Your iTunes library and your drive will be now clean.

Upper Structures.... Triads?

If you've never heard the term UST (upper strucure triads) you probably wouldn't want to read this piece unless your current playing/reading level is intermediate to advanced, in which case: you should read it.

USTs is a great device for improvising and comping. UST is short for Upper Structure Triad which in a few words is a triadic structure that is a subset (substructure) of the "current structure". USTs work really well in any song and/or style but they're not the only structures that can be superimposed against others. In fact, as we will see later, any structure that is a subset of the current structure can be successfully superimposed.

What is a structure? A structure is any collection of pitches. No rules will be imposed to these collections. Any collection is valid. Any subset of that collection is a substructure of that main or source structure.

e.g. The C major scale is a collection of pitches => it's a structure. The notes C-D-F-B are a subset of the C major scales => that set is a substructure of the C major Scale. C-E-G is another subset of the C major scale and is also a triad => it's a triadic substructure of the C major scale.

How do you use these substructures? Actually, it is very simple:
Choose a substructure of the "current structure" and improvise or comp with it.

It sounds easy but: How do you know which one is the "current structure"? and how do you choose a substructure? These are not easy questions to tackle. There are so many factors to account for regarding these matters that the answers to these questions are almost subjective.

Determining the "Current Structure"
In order to find the current structure, one must be able to analyze the harmonic progression of the piece. Assuming the piece is tonal/functional, the analysis should be pretty easy to realize (if you know tonal harmony theory)

In functional harmony every chord has a function which implies a scale that fits best.
For example:
1. The I chord in a major tonal key takes Ionian, since I is always associated to the Ionian scale. In this case Ionian is your "current structure".

2. The V7/ii chord in a major key takes Mixolydian b13, since a V is always asscociated to some form of the Mixolydian scale. In this case, the V7/ii is a dominant of a minor chord that takes Dorian, therefore the 3rd of that chord is minor and the 6th is major which superimposed with the V7/ii chord gives us a 9 an 11 and a b13 => Mixo b13.
Here's an example in C: The ii is D minor which takes Dorian. The V/ii is an A7 chord.
If we look at A7 mixo (A-B-C#-D-E-F#-G) we have A C# E G (1-3-5-b7) as chord tones and B D F# as tensions (or extensions of the chord 9-11-13). Only two of the notes are not in D Dorian: C# and F#. We must keep all chord tones to have an A7 chord, therefore we can't change C# to C, but we can change F# to F (which gives us Mixo b13) and fits D Dorian best.

As you can see it is not too hard to find the associated scale (the "current structure") for a certain function (if you know your harmony and your modes).

Choosing a substructure of the current structure
It's all subjective. Any subset of the current structure is available.
How do you choose?... You use your ears and your taste. Every structure (or substructure) has a color (a sound) produced by the combination of note-intervals embedded in it.
For example: the structure C E (2 note structure) is only an interval of a major 3rd (or 2 if you consider the inversion E to C which is a minor 6th) when played it gives us a color.

Why are triads so often used?... Triads have a very distinct color (sound) that has been invading our ears all our lives, therefore they are recognizable entities even against other structures. We can always tell them apart because we have unconsciously trained our ears to feel at home with them.

Music = B ( Repetition vs. Variation, Culture)

Music is a language where all concepts and thoughts are abstract, where semantics can be re-formulated in each work and statements are made, (using an external device, aka "musical instrument"), embedded in an imaginary grid of Time. This environment of non predefine words or meanings, makes the communication of clear ideas a tricky endeavor, and at the same time gives music the power to express emotions like no other language.

How do we justify the presence of an element in a musical phrase? Why is the ending of a certain phrase the logical conclusion to its antecedent? In other words:
What makes a musical statement valid?

There is no simple answer to this question. ...maybe there is no answer. In the end this is all very subjective. Nevertheless music must follow certain universal rules since it's meant to be interpreted and understood by us: humans and ergo by our brains (or should we say: our minds). Music must talk to us in a way that our embedded language system can understand and process.

One of the key rules music must obey is, what we could call, a "pattern-predictability" rule.
Our minds are always looking for patterns, always trying to predict outcomes, to anticipate what's next. When we listen, we use time as a grid to discern between chaos and patterns.

A metronome at 60 will click every second and, after listening to it just a couple of times, we are able to predict when the next click will come. We interpret that as a beat, probably the most simple pattern there is. Now... Is that music? Probably not. The lack of variation is what makes it not musical. If, at least, the timbre of the click would have changed over time, or some of the beats went missing at a set amount of clicks; then we would have been closer to some kind of musical statement.

That balance between repetition and variation (new information) is what turns sound into music. Too much repetition is too predictable, too monotonous, it is just sound that comes at regular intervals. Too much new information (variation) is chaos. When composing or improvising, we must always remember that's the game we're playing.

A great musician is a master of balance, of equilibrium, he/she knows when to add something new, when to create tension, and when to give us the predictable and let us feel at home.

But that's not the end of it. There's an almost unsolvable problem in all this argument: us. The Audience. The Listener. Who is 'us'? There's one more variable we need to take into account:
Culture, because, unfortunately, what's repetition to me it is not always repetition to someone else, in fact it might be chaos. And then comes the famous quote: "That's not music! It is just noise"

So we must add that parameter to our equation:
Music = Balance (Repetition vs. Variation, Culture)

While writing about this, I've been listening to Mozart, The Beatles, John Coltrane, Keith Jarret (and many more...) and I must add something to my previous statement:

A great musician is a master of balance, of equilibrium, he/she knows when to add something new, when to create tension, and when to give us the predictable and let us feel at home. A master musician is one that makes Culture minimal in the equation of Music.



mDecks