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Quiet!

It never fails.

If I'm looking for lyrics to a song, or a certain song, the page containing my boon will always have an embedded piece of terrible music playing. Worse, the controls to make the music stop will be hidden somewhere in the middle of the page. Or, worse yet, there won't be any controls to stop the music.

Any time a page makes me take my lazy hand off of my mouse, it's asking for me to leave. Whether it's a registration form forcing me to the keyboard, or embedded music forcing me to the volume knob, it's much more likely that I'll simply leave than try to endure the site's offenses.

Embedded music is akin to the chimp and the unloaded shotgun. At a low enough mental capacity, the chimp won't know how to put a shell in the chamber, much less how to cock the weapon and fire it. That chimp ain't gonna shoot anybody. But if he's taught how load the gun and cock it, you better take cover.

People that know how to embed music in their web site are likewise just smart enough to do real damage. They're proud of having figured out how to make their web page play music, but they're not smart enough to know that NOBODY WANTS TO HEAR THE MUSIC.

Why?

Far too much web surfing is done from the office. And to have your speakers suddenly start blasting a techno remix of La Traviata's final duet could be a bit embarrassing.
MIDI music sounds terrible. It's a great way to share the written notes to music quickly across electronic applications, but it's a lousy way to hear the music. Which is why people are willing to download the much larger MP3 version of a song than to just hear the MIDI bastardization.
It's rude to "take control" of someone's computer -- popping-up windows & resizing windows are the most obvious ways, but changing what is generally a quiet experience into an auditory one is an affront to your user.

What about embedding non-MIDI music that doesn't play automatically? Well, that's a whole 'nother ball of wax, now, isn't it? If you're a band with downloadable samples, that's great! If you've made MIDI files for folks to check out, super! Just don't make them play automatically.

Below is the source code you need. Please, use it wisely. Remember, the phrase is "Peace and quiet," not "Peace and music."

<embed src="your_file.mid" width=150 height=55 autostart=FALSE loop=FALSE>

You will note that AUTOSTART is set to FALSE. You're probably clever enough to figure out how to alter this code so that the music automatically plays, but you didn't learn it here.