Last week I was talking with my friend Rob, whose son is doing a music course in Guildford. It's tertiary education and essentially equips Jack to make a living as a musician, doing sessions, weddings and anything else that pays.
However, most people who study music will never make a living at it, or even earn any money at it.
That doesn't matter so much when it's a bit of fun. It doesn't take a huge sacrifice to learn some chords to knock out some tunes, or indeed to bang a drum in time in a samba band.
On the other hand, it takes thousands of hours to achieve even basic competence playing composed music on any instrument. Over the year I see various student performances around the area, where youngsters bravely put themselves to the test in public on whichever instrument they're learning - violin, cello, piano, trumpet, clarinet and guitar have featured this year.
Perhaps the point of youngsters learning music is to assist the development of various skills and competences that are apparently stimulated by the process. And if they go on to perform in public in any capacity, then they are arguably adding to the common good - although the public is often restricted to their parents turning up dutifully to provide an audience.
Maybe some of the same applies to adults learning music. Last I heard, 50-something Professor Tom Kirkwood of Newcastle was learning to play the piano: " One is never too old to take up a new challenge or acquire a new skill. My own latest challenge has been to start learning to play the piano, something that brings me enormous pleasure."
From close up, learning an instrument and listening to music is obviously an end in itself; otherwise, why would people do it?
Nevertheless, standing back from it and looking at the bigger picture of the world's needs, isn't it just self-indulgent frivolity? Wouldn't all those hours spent practising for personal pleasure be better and less selfishly devoted to useful public service of some sort?
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