Music on External Hard Drive

Like many people I store my music files on an external hard drive to prevent my Mac hard drive from filling up.
However I find iTunes doesn't keep the settings for the drive in preferences (as a library location) and reverting to users/[username]/music/itunes and so if I haven't remembered to go in every times and change it back new downloads, podcasts, imports etc are saved on my Mac hard drive not the external and I have to keep redoing 'add to library' -which is getting really really annoying now.
My external hard drive is always on before my Mac's booted up and available for itunes before loaded so I don't know why it won't keep the library location in preferences - why have the option to change it if it always reverts?
Any ways around this?
Thanks!

Nothing happens when I hold down "shift" key.
I did however solve this. My music location of F:\iTunesMusic was correct, but there is a trick after entering the music location. Close iTunes then reopen, there will be an option "Scan for Music". Click that option and iTunes will load (Not Copy) all the music in the external hard drive into iTunes. It will then show up in 'Music", which it wasn't before. I tested with one song to, "Locate in Explorer", and it went to the location on my external HD.
This one little bit of information is missing on all the internet intructions either on Apple support or independent sites.

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