how to play only a song's first 30 seconds

[mr_malkovich]

Can a script be written that will play only the first 30 seconds of each song before moving to the next song in the list?

If that's not possible, can a keyboard shortcut be created that allows me to move to the next song in the playlist without bringing VLC up as the main window?

I have a gigantic pile of mp3s I need to get through and I'm trying to streamline the process.