I got Rhythm, I got Rhythm

who could ask for anything more....

But on other far more interesting fronts, I went to the Symphony this weekend. I would have taken my knitting, but I have a funny feeling that knitting at the symphony would have been wrong. I did not want to get this nice crowd of people riled, take their cue from Madame Dafarge and guillotine me.

Had it been proper, I could have absolutely knit while they played. I was not much of a Schubert fan, but have to admit, his Symphony No. 5 was lyrical. There is just something about sitting in the lovely Winspear Centre, with its perfect acoustics that makes you fall in love with what you hear. It was like sitting inside the music. I have gone but once to a live orchestral concert, but intend to make sure this was not the last time it happens.

Watching the Orchestra play, watching the violinists bow their instruments, I was struck by how very much knitting looks like their playing. Tuesdays at knitting circle look a lot like a symphony of knitters.

Without a conductor, we arrange ourselves around a centre table, often in a sort of oval grouping, so we can see each other work. Our elbows bow in time, our hands dance lightly along the strings. Even simple knitting is beautiful to watch. We are a lot more noisy than an orchestra, we drink coffee and other things while we play, we dress a lot more casually than the average orchestra. If you went by dress, we'd look a lot more like the orchestra's cousin musician who was playing outside the theatre. ('Everybody loves somebody sometime' sung just for the pure joy of singing and pennies. I wouldn't have minded hearing him inside the concert hall on that stage. He was very good.) Luckily, we don't have to dress up to play. We can just arrive as we are, and get to the heart of the matter. The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra has music rhythm, and we have knitting rhythm.

In music they teach you to just keep on playing, but in knitting, no matter how strong your urge to just keep knitting is, you absolutely must go back and make it right. You can want to believe that one little oops is not going to matter, and on very rare occasions it might not, but most of the time, you will come to the end of a 7000 row project and realise that you had a tiny error in row 12, compounded and continued through every other row and nothing looks right because of it. Music played live is ephemeral and lives on in memories, but knitting is solid, tangible, and what you end up seeing relies on how well you played.

Knitting might not be music but, they come from the same heart. I got rhythm, so I knit.

I'm playing with Blogger's new scheduling feature. If things seem out of order this week, it is just me.