iTunes and ipod

I dont know if this has been asked so forgive me if it has. Is there a way to hook up your ipod to your computer and play the songs through the computer's itunes rather than the os in the ipod. As of now all i see is the songs when updating but they can nt be played.

I have heard of extractors such as senuti but that is to get the songs off ipod to computer which is not quite what im looking for. Pretty much I want to back up all of my songs to dvds and then free up a ton of space on my computer. And since the itunes interface is much easier to navigate, I would like the ability to use my computer to control whats on my ipod via itunes

Is this possible?

Thanks