Ah right commercials, that\'s another good source. Er...and...I kinda avoid country music like the plague, so I dont\' know anything about how lucrative it is lol. After growing up with my dad listening to it on the radio all the time, especially on the road, I can\'t bare to listen to it anymore. It grates on me like rap music hehe.
I can see how it might be a good way to start. I think one of the voice actors from Baldur\'s Gate 2 was a country singer. The lady who voiced Viconia. Don\'t know the name though.
Anyways, so I\'m at least a -little- on topic, I think adding minstrels or musicians would be a good idea, and I guess it\'s planned since those skills exist. But I don\'t know about actually writing music....I suppose it could be possible in a crafting system...much like writing a book. Need certain skills, materials, etc. Not sure how that could be made to be practical within the game though, er...the end result I mean.
If you\'re writing vocal music, I can see maybe having randomly generated stories or something being sung by a minstrel. But if it\'s purely instrumental, I\'m not so sure that could work too well, since writing music generally implies writing new music. Stuff that\'s never been heard before.
I dunno *shrug* maybe it could be done, maybe it\'d be too much work. I could see having words to go with someone\'s musicianship within the game though, so that might be feasible.