Time Machine and New iTunes Library Help!!

So I finally got a TB hard drive and am using Time Machine to backup my MacBook Pro which has about 4 GB of free space on it. Most of my hard drive is taken up with music files. I want to know how I can move my library to my external drive (maybe just doing time machine will do this?) but keep some file on my computer so I can play them without the external drive.

What's the best route? I know that consolidating my library to another drive will do half of what I want, but what about keeping some songs on my computer- like 50 GB worth (but I will also want these songs on the external drive so that they are backed up!)

Thanks!!!!

There are several ways to do this but in general you want to segregate your Time Machine backup from the files you offload from your computer's hard drive because TM is suppose to eventually delete anything you no longer have on your computer. TM only backups what is currently on your computer but does a delayed deletion of what's not.

1. Get a second hard drive and use one for TM and the other for files you offload from your computer. You should backup your non TM because you now only have one copy of your files. You can do this with another hard drive or with other media such as DVD or online backups.

2. Since you have a large external hard drive you can partition it and use one side for TM while the other for file storage. The problem with that is if it fails then you will lose everything.

3. Get a larger internal hard drive so that you can keep all your music internally and then just use the external for TM.