iTunes 11 comes with a lot of new and nifty tricks that makes using it easier and better than ever, but there are a few keyboard shortcuts that you should probably know about. There are the usual ones: Space to play or pause a song, Command + Right Arrow to skip to the next song, and Command + Left Arrow to go back to the beginning of the current song or skip back to the previous song.
With iTunes 11 you can easily switch between different types of media with keyboard shortcuts, which is great when you’re not showing the Sidebar. Hit Command followed by any number from 1-7 to switch to any enabled media, which will usually show up in the left top pop-up menu in iTunes 11 or down the left side of the Sidebar. Here’s the full list of numbers and which type of media they correspond to:
Command-1 = Music
Command-2 = Movies
Command-3 = TV Shows
Command-4 = Podcasts
Command-5 = iTunes U
Command-6 = Books
Command-7 = Apps
Another trick is to add songs to the Up Next playlist. You can also hit Option + Return once you have selected the songs in your iTunes 11 playlist. Click on the song with the mouse, or use the up and down arrows to select the song you want to send to Up Next and then hit Option-Return.