Wow, this is one of the most unanimous threads ever! So I can't resist offering a dissenting voice.

Whenever you play for free, aren't you effectively paying to play? After all, it costs you time, energy, maybe gas money or parking or babysitting, wear on your strings and so on.

If you're volunteering because of the cause (a benefit, or for the happiness of the audience) you could be said to be making a donation. And if you're volunteering because you want the exposure, you are in a sense buying the exposure, although the costs you incur are more subtle than handing some cash over to the organizer.

I ask this because the same day I got a call asking if I wanted to audition for this TV thing, I got a call from my sister asking if I would play violin in her church sometime. Thing is, going to her church would involve about four hours on the road. So the question before me is whether I'm willing to pay that amount of time and gas to play there, which is not totally unlike the question of whether I'm willing to pay for the TV audition, though it certainly seems less crass.

Marion