Confession: I don’t think I ever made a mix tape back in the day (i.e., the 1970s and 1980s). I’ve never been that into music, I guess, or perhaps just not that into sharing. But I never imagined that there was anything much to it. By extension, there must not be that much to burning a music CD (well, actually, there’s not–I’ve done that), making a mashup, or podcasting–right?
Well, yes, there is. I volunteered to do a PowerPoint for my kid’s elementary school auction. They were trying to raise money for a technology upgrade. A few pictures of outdated computers and cute children, I thought, combined with some short music clips. I went to iTunes, clicked on a few $0.99 tunes (“Also Sprach Zarathustra,” aka the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and David Bowie’s “Changes”). Downloaded them, clicked over to PowerPoint, and tried to import them into the presentation.
Bonk! I suppose if I ever paid any attention to music, I would have known that iTunes was not going to let me chop bits off the songs and put them into other software. Nothing I tried worked, though admittedly I didn’t try to burn a CD and re-download the music to my computer (I’ve been told that works). Finally, disgusted, I ran iTunes alongside PowerPoint and timed the presentation to “Also Sprach Zarathustra” alone.
My goal in the next week or so is to pull out my husband’s old iPod, figure out how to munge some songs together, put them on my computer, and make it work.
UPDATE (4/2/07): I may not have to pull out that iPod after all. The news today is looking mighty good: EMI and Apple have struck a deal to put non-DRM music on the web.
This is a crackup – BOL with the ol’ Pod and, don’t forget, your not to infringe on copyrights! *-)