How much?

Now that I've finished knitting the shawl I'm starting to plan other projects. I've wound a skein of crushed-berry coloured, hand-dyed silk bought in Basle a couple of years ago. I've bought a pattern, but I'm not sure if it's the right one for the yarn. I may use a pattern I already have, or I might buy another. In the meantime I've bought the pattern for a jumper and am pondering which yarn to buy.

Which is all very fascinating in itself, but doesn't obviously have much to do with piping, beyond forming one of my regular distractions. The point is that a knitting pattern is normally a pdf, so not even a physical object. There will be a front page with a picture of the pattern knitted up, a page of stuff needed to knit the item (the yarn, the needles), and possibly a list of abbreviations, although that might have a page to itself. It will close with some remarks on copyright and permitted use of the pattern, maybe some thanks to test knitters. There will be more pictures: a close-up, the item in a different colour, or worn by a different model. Somewhere in the middle will be one or two pages of actual instructions for knitting something. Sometimes these are free, sometimes to help promote a company's yarn and sometimes because it's a new designer. Often you have to buy the patterns, and that might cost between £3 and £5 or more.

Oddly enough I seem happy to buy the patterns, even when I'm not totally sure I am going to use them. Music, on the other hand, I have a real aversion to paying for. In some ways music is just another pattern, more instructions for making something. I've yet to see any fancy additions, any musical equivalent of pictures and abbreviations,  but then when I've seen charges for sheet music it's a lot cheaper than for knitting patterns.

I'm just as bad with books of music. There are several I'd like and I've not done anything about buying them, partly because, I suppose, I feel they won't be good value, I won't get my money's worth from them. And yet I have knitting books, and cookery books, on my shelves where I've really only ever used one or two patterns or recipes. So why am I happy to pay for the one and not the other?

The books of patterns or recipes often have additional information in them - perhaps some essays on knitting history or pictures of a particular country of region. I can sit and flick through either and get enjoyment and inspiration from them in a way I can't with a book of music. I can also tell from flicking through how many of the sets of instructions I am genuinely likely to use, whereas, as I've mentioned before, looking at printed dots tells me nothing about how playable or enjoyable I will find the tune.

A printed tune has limted use. Once I have the tune by heart the dots are useless. It takes me longer to get a recipe by heart, so I need to go back to my cookery book more often. I rarely knit the same pattern more than once, but would need the pattern every time I knitted it again.

A tune is not a thing, somehow. I can cook, share and eat a dish over and over. Once I have followed a pattern I have an item I can wear or use over and over. And although I can play a tune over and over for years it's somehow not a solid object in the same way as a dish for dinner or a pair of mittens.

I suppose one of the reason to pay for patterns is quality. Anyone can put together a pattern and share it round. When you buy a pattern you normally expect it to have been tested by a number of knitters, to have been technically edited, to be failsafe, to include a variety of sizes. A tune is a tune, and although the presentation on the page might be more or less clear, and gracing might be included or excluded, I've not generally found free printed tunes containing errors.

The other reason is that through the various knitting blogs I follow I appreciate that these (usually) women depend on pattern sales to make their living. Many of them promote their work through blogs. There is a feeling that you have a personal connection with the blogger.

That's something I really don't have with the composers of pipe tunes. Most of them seem to be dead, and those who are still living I know nothing about. And maybe that perceived personal connection makes all the difference. Because when I buy a pattern from an independent designer I'm not just gaining instructions; I feel as though I am suporting  small business, paying back into a blog I enjoy reading, even supporting my own escapist fantasy in which I, too, would sell a few patterns in between knitting, piping and gardening. I'm buying myself membership of a community.

And maybe it's just that I need to pay if I want good quality, up to date knitting patterns. Pipe music doesn't date and the older tunes do just as well and there is a lifetime's worth of free pipe tunes out there before I'd need to pay. Good quality recipes can now be had online for nothing, from various sources, some of which are trying to sell you groceries or utensils, others are  providing a public service (or possibly enticing you to buy the book of the TV show...).

So should I be happy to reap the musical benefits of free dots, or should I be putting my money where my elbow is? I really don't know.