I know that the my Kindle DX can read the text of some books and magazine articles, but I heard that you can also listen to music on the Kindle while you’re reading? Sweet, but how the heck do you do that??
One of the experimental, poorly documented features of the new Kindle operating system from Amazon is indeed the ability to play music while you’re reading or otherwise using the device. You can’t use Pandora or Slacker Radio, though, you need to start by uploading some mp3 files into the device then know the secret (shhh) key combination to get music started and to skip songs.
Let’s start with the first step, though.
Find some mp3 format audio files on your computer (I don’t think it can play WMA files, so if that’s all you have, consider checking out my article How to Convert WMA to MP3 as needed).
For this test, I pulled out a folder of classic Dave Brubeck jazz, the amazing album Time Out and dropped it onto my Desktop just to make life simple.
Then I plugged my Amazon Kindle into the computer and waited for it to show up as a USB device. When it did, here’s what I saw:
See that “music” folder? That’s where you want to drop your mp3 files. It’s smart, so I actually dragged my music folder onto the Kindle and left the individual music files within. It ended up looking like this:
Now you’re ready to go. Unplug your Kindle and…
Press ALT + Space to play your music. Done? Press the same key sequence to pause the music playback.
Want to skip to the next song? That’s what happens when you press ALT + F.
That should get you going. Don’t forget that there’s a convenient headphone jack on your Kindle too, if you don’t want to bother other people as you proceed. Also, if you’re a fan of podcasts, recognize that this will let you listen to podcasts on your Kindle too, if you go through the hoops of manually transferring the mp3 files.
Tip: One of the options on the “Experimental” menu is “Play MP3”, but you have to quit whatever you’re reading to get to the Experimental menu, so it’s less helpful than the keyboard shortcuts. If you do choose it, though, here’s what it’ll look like:
Helpful? I hope so! Now, as you’re learning more about your Kindle, why not check out the extensive Kindle help I have on this site?
You can also play internet radio streams if you jailbreak your Kindle, install the launchpad and mplayer hacks and edit the configuration appropriately. The only limitation is that this works only with a WiFi connection. Email me if you would like details on this.
Dave
hi dave, I bought a kindle fire I have no music.how do I get some (irish) iam new to this as an oap I am not savey
alt + f doesn’t work for me! /:
How do I stream radio to my Kindle DX?
Ron
I plug my Kindle Fire to the computer via the cable. My computer only recognizes it as device F. How do I load my CDs so they will play on the Kindle Fire? My Operating system is Vista.
2 comments 1 this is also great for listening to audio books but 2 is a question how do i select which book i want to listen to?
hi dave could you tell me how to down load podcasts in to my kindle 3 3g and how many hours of podcast can i put on my kindle be fore it is filled up ?
thanks in advance john
works perfect!
I downloaded music oasis. I canot find it to download music. How does it work?
ahh!thank you this has helped so much! you have no idea how long i have spent trying to figure this out:)
Me again, I figured it out somehow. I just rebooted. Thank you
Hi again Dave. I’m guessing it was me that caused this – I have a new Generation 3 Kindle and originally I used my Windows Media Player to put some songs on it. Unfortunately, my music was in WMA format. Though on the Kindle itself, these files were not recognized, when connected to my laptop they were. So, from my laptop, I deleted all the music and apparently the music folder as it is not showing up when I opened the Kindle file again on my laptop. Aargh, I don’t know how to get it back. Do you have any ideas on this?
Thank you in advance
Hello Dave, I have a new Kindle and wanted music on it and lo and behold, all my music is WMA. I appreciate your recommendation of Switch for converting and moreso that you showed a step by step how to do it. Thank you 🙂
Somewhat helpful, but I’ve downloaded music from Amazon directly to Kindle ( it shows as being there on my computer ) but where is it?
I downloaded directly to my computer, a different piece ( again shows on my computer listing of what’s on Kindle ) but where is it on the Kindle to play?