(This is a reply to Re^5)

Your suggestions have provided the right answer! Here are two scripts; the first hangs until the sound file stops playing, and then displays a confirmation message.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use diagnostics;
use warnings;

use IPC::Run qw/start/;
use POSIX ":sys_wait_h";

my ($h, $pid, $result);

# Play the sound file
$h = start ['play','-q','/home/ra/Desktop/trek3.mp3'];

# Get the process ID (there's only one)
foreach my $kid (@{ $h->{KIDS} }) {

    $pid = $kid->{PID};
}

# Wait for the sound file to stop playing, and then display a message

# Option 1: scripts hangs, and then correctly displays a message 
#   as soon as the sound file stops playing
sleep 5;
waitpid($pid, 0);
print "finished!\n";

# Tidy up
$h->signal('INT');
$h->finish;
[download]

The second checks once a second, and prints a confirmation message within a second of the sound file stopping.

#!/usr/bin/perl

use strict;
use diagnostics;
use warnings;

use IPC::Run qw/start/;
use POSIX ":sys_wait_h";

my ($h, $pid, $result);

# Play the sound file
$h = start ['play','-q','/home/ra/Desktop/trek3.mp3'];

# Get the process ID (there's only one)
foreach my $kid (@{ $h->{KIDS} }) {

    $pid = $kid->{PID};
}

# Wait for the sound file to stop playing, and then display a message

# Option 2: correctly displays a message within a second of the sound 
#   file stopping playing
do {
    sleep 1;
    waitpid($pid, WNOHANG);
    print "waiting...\n";
} until (! (kill 0, $pid));
print "finished!\n";

# Tidy up
$h->signal('INT');
$h->finish;
[download]

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