Heres my take. I am a business professional who is in the fortunate position of earning my money from that. I am fortunate in that I don’t need to earn money from my music. If I am careful I will never need to earn my money from music. It would be nice but I am under no illusions that I will ever earn as much from playing music as I do from writing specifications for business systems. Music is my hobby.

A friend of mine has started a food market. She has done a huge amount of work, a lot of it for the community. It is just starting to take off. I play there every Saturday morning for free. It is a win-win situation. She gets the free musician and I get the exposure (and BTW I do improve hugely every week). I love it! Moreover I display a banner with my website and give out cards. I think it is only a matter of time before people are asking me to do private functions, where I can charge something. I am also not about to start charging her when her market is doing better. We will grow together.

I don’t think I am taking the money out of another musician’s mouth as she would not be in a position (or probably willing) to pay anybody and would just have music on a pa system. I am interested in other people’s take on this.

LyricLab – Where words become music https://www.lyriclab.net/