Gibb - Thank you, it's an interesting point of view. I'm not sure you'll get much agreement round here, but I enjoyed reading it. For my own part, I can wholly understand the "low status" of musicians - I'm a (somewhat lapsed) medieval re-enactor. Whilst musicians were a very desirable part of the world, the vast majority were also, most definitely, low status. I'm rather more perplexed by the notion that someone who sings is a singer, someone who plays the drums is a drummer, but someone that play the sitar is not a sitarist (or whatever), but simply a musician!

To me, they're all creating, or perhaps I should say "making", music. They may not be creating something original, but they're all musicians to me.