Grids

Funny how humans reduce everything to grids. Knitting patterns- grids. Computer music programs- grids. Guitar necks- grids.
I once devised a project that involved making music out of a knitting pattern. You played the music into the computer, it made a visual grid and a piece of knitting came out the back. I even found a knitter in Aberdeen who would work on it, too, and some enthusiastic supporters. The problem was I just didn't have time to do it, just to have the idea.
When I make knitting patterns I usually work it out on a grid but then get more confident and do it freehand. When I program music I have to remind myself to be a listener not a watcher, cos if I'm not careful I become fascinated and distracted by the little coloured columnar pop video I'm creating on the screen.
Lots of folk dances work on grids too and I imagine the weaving as people are galumphing about in formation. Of course that actually happens physically in Maypole Dancing. Strange that such physical things are reduced to geometry, and I know that is always one of the problems with notation, because you can't notate emotion in music or indeed the stamina that it will take different dancers to get through a dance. Notation is a sad little world of its own; I have a very funny picture of a bird with its song carefully notated out beneath it, without the fresh air, the temperature, the other ambient sounds, the age of the bird or the purpose of the song.

I hope you like the folksinger jumper. It was knitted all on one big needle and I have always meant to do sleeves, but then I didn't get round to it and realised that all the best folksinger jumpers are tank tops anyway, aren't they?