As a new player one thing noticed is the lack of music while walking around exploring. Am I missing something? My music volume is all the way up.
This is because the music is played depending on day time and location.
Except on rainy/stormy days, ambient music is played as soon as the farmer wakes up. The whole music piece is played, then it stops. If the farmer moves to a ambient music enabled area before 12pm, the ambient music will start again. Example: the music is stopped at 9am, the farmer walk to the Backwoods: the same music starts again. If the music stops at 11:40am and the farmer moves back to the farm: the music will start again. If the farmer does so after 12pm, the music won't start.
There are exceptions, like the Beach for example, where the ambient music is a specific ambient sound (waves sound): music is never played there.
If you use jukebox in some buildings, you can force ambient music to start again (at least on the farm) even after 12pm. I don't know if this is intended.
Once night falls (time varies from one season to another) ambient music will stop whatever happen. It will be replaced by night sounds.
In a nutshell, if you start exploring after 12pm (which is often the case when there are many things to do on the farm), you will not hear ambient music.