Best way to play recording in Fedora

[WGregory]

I want to be able to play an audio sound or recording (preferably a
voice recording I have created) from a file on my Fedora server to a
speaker that is connected to the system.  The purpose is to alert the
night crew when there is a problem.  

I am running Fedora 5 on my test system.  I inserted a music CD on the
Fedora 5 system.  It began playing the CD using Totem 1.3.92.  However,
I cannot access files on the CD.  Mount shows "automount."   There is
nothing in the /mnt or /media directories.

What is the best way to create an audio file on Fedora and play it using
either (1) a C program (preferably), or (2) the shell command line?
What is the best program and associated file type to accomplish this
under Fedora?