So listening is 'better' than singing, eh?

Of course it is; most people would rather hear music than try and do it themselves. Most people do listen more than they play anyway. If I played more than I listen I'd be a physical & nervous wreck. Right now I'm back on the Purcell Sonatas in Four Parts. No way I could play them myself. Same goes for pretty much anything else really, be it old recordings of Harry Cox & Sam Larner (better still, The Video) or old recordings of Bird & Birks, or the new Kanye West album...

social context

Oh come on - even sitting here typing this is a social context; I get MP3 downloads and all sorts of stuff like this - sharing music with people of similar passions which might never happen otherwise. Then you have church, choirs, discos, night clubs, raves, parties, fun fairs, shopping centres, like the Trafford Centre where even I might shead a tear for Karen Carpenter in the food hall for all sorts of reasons, social, personal, cultural, which is what music is.

Holy Writ of Suibhne

I'm thinking of real lives here - not fantasy folk lives authenticated by Cecil Sharp as genuine. Musical experience lives and breathes in each and every single human heart that's ever lived as Sacred. To me that's about as Holy as it gets really.