If I get an Apple Music subscription, can I still keep the songs in my iTunes library without moving them to the cloud? I ask because I understand that Apple Music will swap your songs for the closest thing in its library. I'm fine with this, except that I have a lot of classical music and I prefer the specific recordings and interpretations that I've been collecting for years. Will I still have immediate access to these tracks? Also, if Apple Music doesn't have the song I'm looking for, can I still use iTunes to download it? Thank you.
Keep the iTunes library after I get an Apple Music subscription
apple-musicitunes
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Best Answer
You can keep your iTunes music. A subscription to Apple Music just provides you access to most of the music found in Apple's iTunes music store. It will not replace any of the songs that are found in your library. It is important to note that all of my songs were downloaded from the store itself.
If you are worried about your songs being deleted or overwritten, I would suggest that you back them up to an external HD or another folder on your computer. Then if they are overwritten you can always get them back.
One thing to note though is that on all computers/iPhones/etc. besides the one you initially subscribed to Apple Music, any music downloaded as part of the subscription will come from Apple Music. In most cases this will be the same track as the one on the original computer, but if Apple's matching algorithm gets it wrong, you might get another version of the same track (e.g. live vs studio recording, or original releases vs. "best of" sampler).