Hey hopper74,
Thank you for contributing to the Apple Support Communities.
It sounds like you want to manually manage music on your iOS devices using iTunes as you've done in the past.
Have you recently signed up for Apple Music or iTunes Match? If so, you won't have the option to manually manage music in iTunes, as mentioned in Move content from iTunes on your computer to your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch:
If you're a member of Apple Music or have an iTunes Match subscription, you have iCloud Music Library turned on. When you have iCloud Music Library turned on, you can't manually manage music.
If you're not using Apple Music or iTunes Match, make sure that iTunes is set up to manually manage music using the steps below.
Check to make sure that the "Manually manage music and videos" option is turned on:
- Connect your device to your computer.
- Open iTunes. Make sure that you have the latest version.
- Locate and click on your device.
- In the left sidebar, click Summary.
- Scroll down to the Options section.
- Click the box next to "Manually manage music and videos."
- Click Apply.
You might see a message that your device is synced with another library. This means that you've used a different computer to sync your device in the past, and iTunes can't sync without first erasing and replacing all iTunes content on your device.
To remove songs from your iOS devices using iTunes, see these steps from iTunes 12 for Mac: Sync iPod, iPhone, or iPad:
Make sure your device is connected, then do one of the following:
Remove an item that was synced automatically: Do any of the following, then sync your device:
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Deselect the checkbox for the item in your iTunes library, and select “Sync only checked [items]” in the Summary pane.
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If the item was added because it’s part of a synced playlist, remove the item from the playlist.
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Change your sync settings to keep the item from being synced.
Remove an item that was added manually or using Autofill: Click On My Device, select an item (or items), press the Delete key, and click Delete.
Sincerely.