Well I've already made my thoughts on the subject clear in an earlier post, but here's one more thing I'd like to add. It was Bardsley's response about guitarists playing with feeling but people sometimes hearing that feeling that got me thinking.

My girlfriend very much dislikes Steve Vai. I love Steve Vai. I understand her feelings, she isn't a guitar player and to the non-guitar player, an all-shred guitar instrumental can sometimes sound like a bunch of white noise. Nevertheless, I sometimes I try and put on a good song for her to hear in the hopes that something out of the white noise will strike her, and maybe she'll be able to develop an ear for it. None of it sounds like white noise to me anymore. Each and every note sings out in its own way. I put the song "Windows to the Soul"...

Well she ho-humed it for a while, but I told her that there was an incredibly powerful part at 1:52 that literally makes me laugh every time I hear it (I don't know why I do; maybe because the notes hit you from nowhere, they're unexpected but when your hear that phrase you can't imagine a more perfect combination of notes at that point- steve vai sometimes has that effect). Anyways she really LISTENED to this part, and made an effort to hear the emotion in it and I convinced her that its not all tasteless speed. Sometimes it's all to easy to cast aside "white noise" when in reality there is something beautiful under it.

Just a little story, take what you will from it.