This was originally posed on May 16, 2014. Some WordPress craziness required me to re-post it here:

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An Esbat Ritual and Impromptu Violin
Posted on May 16, 2014 by paganmuse

I have not yet had the chance to put much up here with background information, yet wanted to share this while it is still fresh in memory.

On Wednesday evening I had the opportunity to attend an open Esbat ritual for the first time. While prepping to head out the door beforehand, I decided to grab the violin at the last minute. After the disappointment with myself for lack of fiddle at the public Beltane, why not have it along? At worst case, it would wait in the car.

When I arrived, I didn’t bring the instrument in with me to start, choosing to just socialize and leave things be. The last thing you would want to do is show up to a party (full of people you may not know) with a cd player and announce you have music for the event! What if that’s already been planned? How egotistical is it to assume your music should be used?

However, shortly before transitioning over to starting the rite, I (rather shyly) mentioned I’d brought my fiddle and it was in the car, if it’d be useful. Some excited prompting and a quick run through the drizzle later I had my violin case sitting off to the side as circle was started.

I don’t really know what I was expecting, to be honest. After initial welcoming of quarters and dieties, the suggestion was made that I play along with people chanting for energy raising. I mentioned I know the Four Elements chant pretty well, and off we went into the chant.

Tip #1: If you like to play in certain keys, don’t let the voices start first. I don’t know what key it was, but it required some pseudo half position in the G and D strings. I’ll be truthful: I didn’t pay attention to what this initial working was raised for – I was fumbling too much just trying to find the notes they were singing.

After that finished other requests for energy were made, and I got the chance to play again for the last one. In this raising, another participant had found a stone that naturally looked somewhat like a swaddled infant, and the suggestion was to pass this around as a focus toward healing Mother Earth from the environmental damages we as humans have done to her. “Oh hey!” I thought, “I think I know the perfect waltz to play as a meditational as people do this!”

And that one clicked. I played Flat World (Bmin) while they passed the stone around. This youtube link has a version at about the speed I took it (it plays maybe a little faster). It’s a haunting mix of sad and hopeful that seemed to do the job well, and at least one participant was in tears as the final note held and the stone was placed on the altar.

I’m still not entirely certain what to think of the ritual itself (I’m notoriously oblivious to energy working), but it has given me plenty to think about in terms of music preparation. If a musician really wants to provide music to support their local pagan community, it requires a different kind of preparation than I learned from watching my mother’s 20+ years of work as a church music director. While planning out music for a service is still a useful process (and still valid for the planning of highly scripted rituals), in this community of “fly by the cuff” and “use what works” you have to know your song list ahead of time and be able to pull one up based on the situation. It’s not enough to be the musician, you really do have to be the bard.