When Jonathan Franzen wrote a letter to Don DeLillo lamenting the death of the social novel and his (Franzen’s) place in the world as a fiction writer, this is part of the reply that he (DeLillo) sent:

“Writing is a form of personal freedom. It frees us from the mass identity we see in the making all around us. In the end, writers write not to be outlaw heroes of some underculture but mainly to save themselves, to survive as individuals.”

Change ‘writing,’ ‘writers,’ and ‘write’ in the above quotation to ‘music making,’ ‘musicians,’ and ‘make music’ and you’ll get a converse truism.