K, so I just posted this as a comment in a friends LJ, but as most of you don't read that one... or mine either apparently.... I'll put it here. I didn't really take the time to put my thoughts together well, but I'd like to hear your views...
Oh, Im extra ranty tonight cause I had to sit through a concert with 12 other choirs, the majority of which were un-auditioned elementary and middle school choirs. I realise that young people need to have an opportunity to make music, but ARGH, I don't want to be part of that opportunity!

THE RANT:
what is the value of music in life when it confronts us with a stark contradiction of whether to pay attention to music with the mind of a musician, or to attend to those things which are pressing, but tainted by the background music.
It's not so cut and dry, as to say that music no longer has the respect it deserves; as classical opera was often talked over, used as a social gathering. BUT does our society know where to draw the line. Those same audiences would shut up for the big aria and pay attention because that was the "worth-while" music. Nay, when you hear a Puccini aria in the background at a coffe place, or a Bach Prelude and Fugue, does anyone stop, or even shift more attention to it, or has our societies musical ear lost its ability to discriminate anything of quality in music, leaving those who care about music, or the good of the world to ask, "Is music completely subjective?!? does the effort we put in really only count if the audience is aware of it?!?"
Mumbly! Many composers have referred to music as the way we decorate silence or soemthing like that, so why are we so afraid of it. I think it completely diminishes the value of noise and sound when it is used with purpose. 20th century music often aims to encorporate all noises around us to become music, which begs the question of 'when does it become music'? on the same wavelength.. if we encorporate music into every moment of our lives, "when does it become not-music"?