You've put your finger on one of what I see as the profound personal cost of being a professional performer.
Just as Mark Twain lamented the loss of a riverboat pilots ability to see the beauty of the swirling currents in the mighty Mississippi- seeing a snag that would rip the bottom out of a boat where a passenger would see beauty- so the loss of appreciating so many beautiful melodies through performance after performance. My brother int law, a professional Broadway doubler on trombone of forty years standing, can no longer hear the Messiah or the Nutcracker as other then, "Now, hit that obligato..."
I still love Silent Night, The Christmas Song- that Nat...-, et al and would take their loss as a serious injury. Of course, professional performing overkill aside, I also avoid shopping malls with the piped in muzak and the radio station assault of "holiday" music reduced to schlock through endless repetition. To my dismay, I now cringe at the very first note of Bing crooning White Christmas.
