Moving all my music to new computer

I just bought a new computer and I'm wanting to move all my Itunes music from my old computer to my new one. I have 5,279 songs to move...some I bought and some I uploaded from cd's. I originally thought I would just get a usb drive and copy all the songs on it and then plug it into my new computer and copy them back into Itunes. However, after googling my dilemma, I'm thinking that's not the right way to do it. I keep reading about consolidating my library. I didn't want to do that until I came on here to ask about it because I don't want to lose any of my songs since they came from different sources.

Can someone please point me in the right direction? I've read so many articles that I've given myself a headache because I'm so afraid I will do something and lose years and years worth of music.

Thanks!!!!

MJ