The VideoLAN Forums

If I try and select multiple tracks ie. open up 10 songs to play, the VLC tries to play them all at once.

Is there a way to get VLC to add the selection to the playlist?

I think you are using Windows, opening your files with Explorer. I don't use Wnidows but maybe this will help.

To have your files added in the playlist of an already running VLC, I only know this method (using only one instance) Under Windows Explorer, you can go to files association configuration through a menu item (a tab in the window which manage preferences, behavior of Explorer, ...). You can then modify or extend operations associated to some types of files.

You should find a default operation for your song files like the one described bellow (just key values of the entry)

name: "play"
action: "c:\.....\vlc.exe %1"

You can either modify this action (%1 is a special tag which will be replaced by the song filename) or add another one (default or not) to match the --one-instance pattern above. Example:

name: "enqueue"
action: "c:\.....\vlc.exe --one-instance --playlist-enqueue %1"

Using another menu-item can allow multi instance of VLC when you need it.

Maybe a better solution exists and this is just an idea (assuming enqueue menu item does not already exists), no Windows around to give you very accurate steps.
Hope I was clear enough.