How To: Play a Song

Demonstrates how to play a song from a user's media libary.

The Complete Sample

The code in this tutorial illustrates the technique described in the text. A complete code sample for this tutorial is available for you to download, including full source code and any additional supporting files required by the sample.

Download PlayASong_Sample.zip.

The following example plays the first song from a randomly picked album.

The Albums property provides access to the media library, and the Play method will play a song. Consider any current audio playback when using the Play method. If the user has a different song playing currently, the user can use the Stop method to stop the current song.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Audio;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.GamerServices;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Input;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Media;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Net;
using Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Storage;

namespace PlaySong
{
    public class Game1 : Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Game
    {
        GraphicsDeviceManager graphics;
        SpriteBatch spriteBatch;

        MediaLibrary sampleMediaLibrary;
        Random rand;

        public Game1()
        {
            graphics = new GraphicsDeviceManager(this);
            Content.RootDirectory = "Content";

            // Frame rate is 30 fps by default for Zune.
            TargetElapsedTime = TimeSpan.FromSeconds(1 / 30.0);

            sampleMediaLibrary = new MediaLibrary();
            rand = new Random();
        }

        protected override void Initialize()
        {
            MediaPlayer.Stop(); // stop current audio playback 

            // generate a random valid index into Albums
            int i = rand.Next(0, sampleMediaLibrary.Albums.Count - 1);

            // play the first track from the album
            MediaPlayer.Play(sampleMediaLibrary.Albums[i].Songs[0]);

            base.Initialize();
        }

        protected override void LoadContent()
        {
            // Create a new SpriteBatch, which can be used to draw textures.
            spriteBatch = new SpriteBatch(GraphicsDevice);

            // TODO: use this.Content to load your game content here
        }

        protected override void UnloadContent()
        {
            // TODO: Unload any non ContentManager content here
        }

        protected override void Update(GameTime gameTime)
        {
            // Allows the game to exit
            if (GamePad.GetState(PlayerIndex.One).Buttons.Back == ButtonState.Pressed)
                this.Exit();

            // TODO: Add your update logic here

            base.Update(gameTime);
        }

        protected override void Draw(GameTime gameTime)
        {
            graphics.GraphicsDevice.Clear(Color.CornflowerBlue);

            // TODO: Add your drawing code here

            base.Draw(gameTime);
        }
    }
}

See Also

Reference

MediaPlayer Class
MediaLibrary Class
MediaPlayer.Play Method
MediaLibrary.Albums Property