Tip: How to play a playlist one song at a time from iTunes on a computer using the checkbox property
I would like to share a tip about how to play a playlist one song at a time from iTunes on a computer. The tip I am sharing is simple, but I was not able to find it in the iTunes Help. After searching on the internet I found the idea for this solution in a discussion in which this was presented as a frustrating problem rather than a desired behavior. This tip relies on the checkbox for each song in iTunes. For a song in a playlist to play automatically, the checkbox must be checked. To keep a song from playing in a playlist, simply uncheck it. Therefore, to keep all songs from playing automatically in a playlist, simply uncheck them all. Now you have a list of desired songs in a desired order but none of them will play automatically. You can play each one when you want to play it without having to search for the next song and without having to be at the computer to stop the playing after each song.
Step by step:
1. Create the playlist.
2. Uncheck all of the check boxes in the playlist (In iTunes for Windows, ctrl click one of the check marks to uncheck all of the checkboxes at once)
3. Now double click (or select and press spacebar) a song to play it. It will stop when finished because there is no other song checked to be played next.
4. If you want to change back to normal sequential play, ctrl click one of the check marks again to change all of the checkboxes back to the checked status.
Based on some discussions I found while looking for a solution (including at least one in which the questioner got bashed about why anybody would ever want to do such a thing and in which the proposed solutions were things like creating one song playlists or simply press stop after each song), some may not understand why this would ever be desired. Here's why I wanted to do it:
I was responsible for playing a series of songs at a dance. I needed to stop after each song to have a transition time to allow me to introduce the next song and to give new dancers time to get onto the floor and other dancers an opportunity to leave the floor. Furthermore, I was also dancing and didn't want to have to spend time searching for the next song (which is why I wanted to create a playlist in advance with just the songs I wanted to play in the order I wanted to play them) and I wanted each song to stop after playing since I was not at the computer to press stop.
I hope this will help others who have a similar need.
Windows 7
