Are you feeling flush? If so, why not enjoy an evening at London's Royal Opera House, where a single seat could set you back as much as £800; a quarter of the soprano's daily meal allowance but still a hefty sum. Even without subsidising a soprano, a night of culture can be hugely expensive: ballerinas famously don't eat at all, and yet seats at the Royal Ballet are still as much as £500 each. If however, like the rest of us, your wallet is feeling a little light, you can forget it. Even introducing the kids to Tchaikovsky at the Royal Festival Hall costs a good deal more than two recorders and an electric keyboard.
With Arts Council funding looking about as secure as Machu Picchu, Britain's musicians need our support now more than ever. But with 80% of households admitting to money worries, it seems that Britain is destined to become a cultural black hole, with classical music reviled as much as super-yachts for the super-rich.
Fortunately, there is an alternative to having the next generation grow up with 'Eine Kleine' in the lift as their only experience of classical music: free concerts. Chances are, there'll be a free concert taking place near you today this lunchtime, possibly in a church, possibly in a local café... But if a quick sandwich à desk is more your thing, perhaps you might consider taking some time off in the evening to catch some rush-hour jazz at an outdoor amphitheatre?
Or what about the Clore Ballroom at London's Southbank Centre? The misleading title suggests tiaras and serious cash; however Charles Clore was a British philanthropist whose charitable legacy can be enjoyed for free at a variety of institutions across London.
The Ballroom hosts a variety of free events, from contemporary Greek music to a Ugandan dance workshop, to which you can wander in off the street and stay for as long (or as little) as you'd like. Just in case you later feel let down, I should mention that the Ballroom doesn't look at all like they do in films. And while I'm being fair, I should tell you that I was being a tad provocative earlier on: it is possible to hear the UK's best orchestras for less than £20 a seat. But £20 seems like a lot of money these days, doesn't it?
This is just the beginning: once you start to look, getting your free music fix becomes easier and easier. Violin virtuoso in a bookshop? Easy. Italian meal with flute accompaniment? Not so easy, but it can be done.
Of course, the reason people pay top-dollar for the Royal Opera House is that the performances are top class; we all remember having to cheer our best mate's cousin's dreadful band at school, where the singer expressed his creativity by shrieking in a different key, and the drummer might have been dead. Allow me to spare you the anguish of a repeat performance, tracking down only the greatest of gratis music for your delectation.
Please come back whenever you have a cultural itch to scratch - you'll find suggestions of free concerts taking place across the UK, as well as reviews of the concerts I happened to be able to catch. (Unless they were really really bad, in which case reviewing them would be too cruel... in the event of a truly bad concert I'll use the code word AVOID, as a veiled hint that you might like to give this one a miss). Just joking !