By Gina Daugherty
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It may seem easy enough, but just slapping together a series of tunes and calling it a mix is an egregious error.

Say you give a romantic mix to someone, but this mix has all sorts of horrible errors, like more than one song by the same artist, songs that have no business being side by side, or worse yet, nothing by Bob Dylan.

Next thing you know, you're working on the Breakup Mix, because you've gone and ruined your chances with the Romantic Mix.

It happens every day.

Still, there should be great joy in making a mix.

"They refract and reflect a period of time, a sense of place, emotional states, aesthetic sensibilities," says the Art of the Mix Web site.

There are some guidelines. They are not concrete, and depending on how cool you truly are, you can bend them. But for the sake of safety and keeping your friends, here are some thoughts on making the perfect mix.

Use a reliable source: ArtoftheMix.com can help. Developed by Seattle software engineer Jim Januszewski, new mixes are posted each week for your viewing and listening pleasure. This is a hotbed of great playlists you can steal and say you thought of yourself.

Consider your audience: Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On" might be great for you and your partner, but probably not so good for Grandma's birthday celebration.

Think of a great theme: Something meaningful, so that when your mix recipient sees the mix, he or she will be intrigued. This is like your album title. For example: "The Bittersweet Remix"; "Songs You Thought You Forgot"; "The Sugar Fix For Your Sugar Fits" (for your diabetic grandma); "Love Is a Four Letter Word"; "Meow Mix"; "So You're In a Body Cast."

Plan ahead: Test your playlist. You may find that what looks good on paper sounds terrible together. Like putting the Clash's "London Calling" next to John Mellencamp's "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A" - or putting "R.O.C.K. in the U.S.A." on anything.

Don't use your music if you've been told your music collection stinks by any of your "cooler" friends.

Do use your music collection if your parents have told you your music collection stinks.

Consider this advice from Rob Gordon, the main character in Nick Hornby's novel (and later the film) High Fidelity: "To me, making a tape is like writing a letter - there's a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again, and I wanted it to be a good one ... A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You've got to kick it off with a corker, to hold attention ... and then you've got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can't have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like the black music, and you can't have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you've done the whole thing in pairs, and ... oh, there are loads of rules." Indeed, Rob. Indeed.