How should I improve music playing on a website? I have a dilemma at the moment and would welcome advice.

So far my web-site
'Songs of the Inland Waterways' plays snippets of music using buttons I designed myself marked 'Play' which link to the music files. These then open in whatever media player the viewer uses and the web-page with the words or music are no longer visible.

I starting going through the web-site using the target="_blank" command to make the music player open in a new window so that the words/music could be viewed whilst listening to the song. Then I discovered on the internet some web designers vehemently opposed to websites forcing the opening up of new windows so I am having a re-think.

A little player such as can be seen on various such as here or other music retaining sites would be nice. However, I would want it to fit in with the rest of my site - the graphics should be customisable or plain or small. It should also not delay page loading time significantly and not make my site dependent on accessing other sites (which may go down).

Am I in danger of making life very complicated for myself and should I leave it as it is? If so what about this opening new window business?

Suggestions and advice welcome.

Ian