It was not "that" or silence. You're not considering that learning to play a musical instrument was itself more common. Performing music was a community activity people used to entertain themselves; the hiring of musicians was for the wealthy aristocracy.

Indeed, you see examples of people singing in the parlor, or a guest or host playing an instrument for everyone else after dinner and at parties in many books and movies.

The existence of DIY approaches was and is real, but:

1) it's a marginal point in response to observations about the meteor-strike level of impact the invention and spread of recorded music had on the market for live performers. The difference between a past with no widespread recording/playback tech and a present where recorded music is widespread and came to be treated as essentially free is so great that invoking the past seems hazardous even if ...

2) we actually have an accurate understanding of it. For my part, I'm pretty skeptical about the idea that paid performances were largely absent in common life before the 20th century.

3) Carefully consider your last sentence there. What exactly was the wealthy aristocracy buying when they hired? Why wouldn't a community or individual with modest wealth want to buy that if they could? Why would it be priced out of reach?

"Performing music was a community activity people used to entertain themselves"

It still is, among the people I know/grew up with.

See:

https://festival.oldsongs.org/

"In addition to three concerts there are over 100 daytime workshops, dances or performances."

Maybe hire is the wrong idea. I meant more generally, “provide a venue for...”.

Not true in the USA. Thousands of towns had multiple amateur concert bands during the 19th century, and band shells are still left over in many parks, although of course they are seldom used for their original purpose.

> Before recorded music, a live band (or one man show!) was the only game in town.

Don't forget the orchestra. Unless you consider it to belong the "live band" category :-)