To me, music is not a competitive sport.

True, some players are more accompplished and/or talented than others, and band members are inevitably put together through some kind of process wherein one person is selected in favor of another.

Still, I've never understood these competitions that are held to determine the "best" singer or picker or harpsichordist or whatever. Seems to me that anyone skilled enough to qualify for, or even to consider entering, such a competition is pretty darn good ~ so much so that picking a single competitor as the "best" might well be an exercise in politics or a beauty contest, not anything meaningfully musical.

I know very little about the classical-musician profession, but I know that cutthroat competitions are at the heart of what young players have to go through to establish a career. And of coruse, we have similar contests in many subgenres of folk music, too.

Mainstream mindless pop music now has those televised mega-competitions that I never watch and hesitiate even to name. What little I know about them includes the telling fact that some contestants who notably fell short of "winning" have gone on the greater success in the musical marketplace than some of those who won. That, I think, says something about ALL musical competitions.