Music on Mac Stops after a few seconds

Here's the problem. The last time I played music I directed the output to a bluetooth device (external speakers) and everything worked fine. Today the output device is not connected/active and I fully intended to play the music on my Mac's internal speakers. When I started playing any song from my library Music app started playing it on the internal speakers but stopped abruptly after only a few seconds. Music did not indicate any problem, in an overt/obvious way, even though it was apparently trying to connect to my bluetooth device (from my previous session) which is again not turned on. The only indication of a problem was some obscure markings on the AirPlay icon in the Music app: it took me way too long to find these markings. Wouldn't it be much better to play to the external device if its there but play to the internal speakers, apparently the default, if the external is not found? Or at least provide a notice for why the playback is being stopped?