In this section:
In Windows 8, you have two choices for playing and organizing your music: the new Music app and the Windows Media Player, which you might have used in previous versions of Windows. Both allow you to play music, but beyond that, they have different strengths.
The Music app is a great way to look for and buy new music, as well as sort music into different categories to help you find selections. The app’s opening screen offers Spotlight (featured selections you can explore), Collection (music you own), and Music Marketplace (the place to shop for music). You can use the Music app to buy music from Zune Marketplace, Microsoft’s music store, using points you purchase.
The Windows Media Player, on the other hand, makes organizing music and creating playlists easy, and for some, it offers the added benefit of providing a familiar interface and familiar tools.
Whichever app you use, you’ll be able to enjoy all your favorite music and find new selections to fill out your music library.
The Music app is probably completely new to you; it has a different look and feel from other music players you’ve used. It’s more than a player—it’s a music store as well. In this task, you begin to find your way around the Music app by using the Windows 8 interface.
On the Start screen, click the Music app.
To move from My Music to other suggested selections of music you can shop for, click and drag the scroll bar to the right.
Click a selection in My Music, and it opens and begins playing.
To display tools, right-click the screen.
To stop the current selection from playing, click the Pause button.
To return to the Start screen, press the Windows logo key.
Note
You can also get to the music app by searching for music. On the Start screen, begin typing the name of a song, artist, or album. In the Search screen that appears, finish entering your search term and click the Music category. The Music app opens and displays information about the music, artist, or album. You can now preview or buy the selection. (See the next task.)
You can use the Windows 8 Search feature to find music, but you can also use tools in the Music app itself to find music that interests you in the Marketplace. A variety of sorting criteria helps you to locate the type of music you like or a particular artist.
The Music app lets you get a preview of music you might be interested in. This feature lets you listen to snippets of selections in an album so that you can decide whether you like it enough to buy. When you preview an album, a short portion of a song plays and then the Music app moves on to the next track, and so on, through the selected album.
When you buy music using the Music app, you are buying from the Zune online store. This store uses points for your purchases. You buy a certain number of points, and then when you shop, you redeem those points to make your purchases. So the first step in acquiring any music in the Marketplace is to buy some points.
After you’ve purchased some points, you can begin to redeem those points to buy music. Buying is as simple as making your selection, clicking to buy it, and if required, entering the verification code from your credit card. The purchased music is then available in your Collection in the Music app.
In the Xbox Music Store, click a selection.
Click Buy Album.
Click Confirm.
Enter your credit card verification value if requested.
The whole point of finding and buying music is to listen to it. The pleasing interface and simple playback tools in the Music app make listening to your music a very pleasant experience.
To display playback controls, right-click the screen.
To go to the next track, click Next.
To go to the previous track, click Previous.
To repeat a track before it ends, click Repeat.
To move among tracks in a random way, click Shuffle.
To pause the music, click Pause.
Windows Media Player offers another way to organize and play music on your computer or from a DVD, as well as offering a way to play videos and view photos. One big plus with Windows Media Player is that it provides an easy way to create and play music from playlists, your own customized lists of music.
On the Start screen, type Windows Media Player.
In the search results, click Windows Media Player.
To display your music, click Music.
To play a selection, double-click it.
To go to the next selection, click the Next button.
To go to the previous selection, click the Previous button.
To play songs in a random way, click the Shuffle button.
To repeat a selection while it’s playing, click the Turn Repeat On button.
To adjust the volume control, click and drag it.
Tip
While playing music, you can click the Now Playing button in the lower-right corner to display a window with controls for the currently playing selection. Click the Switch To Library button in the upper-right corner to go back to the Media Player main screen. You might have to move your mouse over the window to make the Switch To Library and other tool buttons appear.
Note
You can sync items from a device such as an MP3 player or tablet to Windows Media Player. Open Windows Media Player, and then connect the device to your computer. Items are automatically copied to your Music library. If they aren’t automatically transferred, click the Sync tab in Windows Media Player and drag the items you want to sync to the Sync list, and then click Start Sync.
In Windows Media Player, you can sort items in your music library and playlists by various criteria such as Title, Artist, Composer, or Length. You can also view music selections by categories such as Artist, Album, and Genre.
Most of us enjoy various artists and even genres of music, and our favorite songs or pieces might come from a variety of sources. Playlists let you pick and choose pieces of music from various sources to make your own mix. One might be romantic, another great for dancing, and still another might be the list of music you’d choose to be shipwrecked with on a desert island. Playlists are all about customizing your music experience, and they’re easy to create.
With Windows Media Player open, click Playlists.
To create a playlist, click the Click Here link.
Enter a name for the playlist.
To save the name, click outside the playlist name field.
To add a selection to the new playlist, right-click the desired selection.
Click Add to.
Click the playlist name to which to add the selection.
To add additional selections to the playlist, repeat steps 5 through 7.
After you’ve created a few playlists, it’s time to listen to your selections. The playback controls for playlists are the same as those covered earlier in the Playing Music with Windows Media Player task.
With Windows Media Player open, click Playlists.
To open a playlist, double-click it.
To play a title in the playlist, double-click it.
Note
Try This!
You can edit a playlist at any time by using several options. Click the playlist and on the Play tab on the right side of the window, click and drag a song up or down to reorder the items in the playlist. Click the Clear List button to clear all items in the list. Click the List Options button, and shuffle or sort the list by using the commands in the menu that appears. You can also right-click an item on the list and choose Remove From List to remove it.
