St Blaise and the Cryptids

(Nimue)

I’m very much a fan of having local festivals and events be part of my wheel of the year, and I think I have a new one to add. St Blaise’s Day is celebrated at nearby Frampton on Severn in a very old church that used to have an image of him painted on the wall. He’s the patron saint of wool combers and sore throats. This was a wool producing area historically so it makes sense that he was honoured here. Frampton has a wonderful giant and a folk celebration of the saint. I’m always up for a bit of living tradition.

We had an unexpected change of programme as the chaps who should have been dancing solo wasn’t able to. Could we do something? A few of us huddled and tried to work out what we all knew that was suitable for a church! We settled on 3 Ravens. Then the organiser asked what we were called for purposes of this event, and we said Carnival of Cryptids.

Rather unexpectedly this was the first outing for a new project. Carnival of Cryptids sings at Mary de Crypt in Gloucester once a month, and goes out to local events. It’s a loose, informal group with plenty of room for people to drop in and out as they see fit. We have some members with a lot of other commitments, and a number with significant health problems so it has to be flexible. James and I are holding the core of it, we’ve got a tight core of capable and fairly committed singers, and a wider community around that. I like running things in ways that allow people to commit to the degree that suits them.

The four of us had not actually sung together before as a group, so I think we did pretty well. I’m looking forward to seeing how this project evolves, to building a new repertoire, and exploring new events and creative possibilities. Keith recorded the video – he would normally be part of this but wasn’t feeling equal to singing at the weekend.

Seasonal Singing

(Nimue)

The photo above was taken during the recent Gloucester steampunk weekend. A group of us gathered at Mary de Crypt on the Sunday afternoon for a spot of seasonal singing. We shared a mix of carols, wassailing songs, and other things that felt seasonally appropriate for a mix of Pagans, Christians, agnostics and perhaps others.

Until that weekend I wasn’t entirely sure if I’d started something, but I have, and we’ll be back there in January to do something similar.

A few years ago I spent some time singing my way through the wheel of the year as a Patreon project. Some months are easier than others – December is certainly an easy one. There aren’t many good January songs, but I have one. We won’t be doing entirely seasonal music each month as I’m inviting people to bring and share what they like. It’ll be eclectic, folky and diverse, which I’m excited about.

My desire to honour the space has led me to look at what kinds of seasonal material there is in the Christian tradition. Easter and the harvest festival seem to be the two other points in the year with the most material but there are other things to draw on. I’m also looking at songs from the folk side that would sit well in a church. It’s an interesting exploration. To my great delight, Alison Eve has written a body of material for the Forest Church to use, so I should be drawing on that as well (I’ve ordered the book and CD).

I love the way in which music has the power to bring people together regardless of faith. The church is a beautiful space to sing in, and it feels like a good and powerful thing to do. I’ve got several participants who aren’t experienced singers and have been clear about wanting the opportunity to grow and learn, which is exciting. I also have a core team of really good and experienced singers who will bring material each month. It’s a lovely prospect and I’m delighted to be heading into 2024 with this in the mix. 

I’ll be using this space to build a team that can sing at local events. James and I felt strongly that we didn’t want to let go of the singing we’d been doing even though Ominous Folk isn’t viable any more. By this means we intend to create something new and to open up space for whoever wants to sing with us. It’s already shaping up well as a plan, and I’ll be sharing more from this journey as we go along.

Sacred spaces and singing

(Nimue)

For all that I’m a Pagan, I’m often attracted to churches and cathedrals. I find them powerful places because of the roles they have played in the lives of so many people. I respect the love, devotion, craft and determination that went into building them. I respect they way they function as community spaces and how much good they can do for people.

Recently I’ve had the pleasure of getting to sing at Mary de Crypt, in Gloucester. It’s an old church, and it turns out that it is on the site of a Roman temple. There’s a Roman well in the pub next door, and the Roman altar stones are currently at the local museum. So this has been a sacred place for a lot of different people for a very long time indeed. Given how the Romans tended to co-opt local deities, there’s every chance there was something on the site before they came to Gloucester.

Churches often have great acoustics for singing. They are places where a person can be without having to pay. An open church can be a place of warmth, shelter and comfort and many churches try hard to serve their communities in this way. Sometimes I find the best way of doing the Druidry is not to announce the Druidry but muck in with whoever is already doing the work. Christians have a lot of useful infrastructure, spaces and resources that Pagans do not, and I’m happy to cooperate with anyone who broadly shares my aims and values. It’s not the first time I’ve worked in Christian settings. There are some awesome vicars out there and there is much to admire in genuinely Jesus-centred Christianity.

It looks like singing in the church is going to be a regular thing for me, if we can pull all of this together. I want to make time and space where people can come along and sing without having to pay or make a substantial commitment. Both of these things can be serious barriers for people who are struggling. I want to sing my way round the wheel or the year, and share that with people. Community singing does a great deal of good, for mental and physical health, connection and community cohesion. Most of the places I’ve been able to offer that for free have been outside, which doesn’t work in the winter, or its the back rooms of pubs which are problematic in their own ways.

I’m hopeful about this opportunity to do something for free in an open and inclusive way.

Singing to the castle

The photo above was taken at Dover Castle. This was an unexpected gig, as someone else had to drop out unexpectedly and as I was around it made sense to drop me in. I was able to borrow some kit – so once again I’m crossdressing and a bit in yellow!

I find it really interesting to get to sing songs in places where they make some particular sense. For this gig, I pulled out my more relevant Childe ballads and what smattering of medieval songs I know and I went for it. The one that turned out most resonant was a song called Ned of The Hill.

“Dark is the evening, silent the hour,

Oh who is the minstrel by yonder high tower”

I’ve sung this song since childhood. It was rather lovely getting to *be* the minstrel stood under the castle wall, the disruptive peasant at the gate.

“Young Ned of the hill has no castle, nor hall

No bowman nor spearman to hurry at his call”.

Singing outside with no amplification isn’t easy. I was able to get a little help from the ramparts and walls, but not much. I had wind to contend with. I picked songs with tunes that had a smaller range because those are easier to belt out. I also slowed everything right down – using my breath for volume not speed, and because the slower words are easier to hear for an audience that is mostly wandering about. I maintain a suspicion that this kind of barding would be a lot easier with a period appropriate amount of beer in the mix, but there we go!

The Cruel Mother

I’ve been singing this song for many years – I’m not sure how many. When my child was a baby, it was one of the songs he reliably responded to, and I have sung him to sleep with it. The other one he especially liked was Byker Hill – which is a loud, stompy sort of song.

When we got The Ominous Folk going, this one went in the first show, and the humorous potential of singing it with James, was irresistible. It’s an odd choice of song to play for laughs, but there we go.

I believe this is a Welsh version of the song – there are a lot of Cruel Mother variants out there. I got this tune from Vicki Williams, and I’m not at all sure where she got it from. 

James and I recorded it because we’re going to be singing it with the big band at the next gig in Gloucester – an Ominous Folk of six people rather than what had been the usual four. We needed to make sure the extra Folk have the right version. It’s fun having the bigger sound, and we’re delighted to have Keith Errington and Jessica Law performing with us for the next event. I suspect we’re going to be a big band for Raising Steam at the end of July as well.

James and I have sung together from very early in his life. He’s always been a confident performer, and at this point he has a considerable vocal range and performance skills. It was very hot when we took the video, so it’s a slightly undead take on the whole song, but that’s not wholly inappropriate.

Singing to the space

How your voice functions in a space is a big consideration for anyone on the bard path. While microphones can be a bit intimidating when you aren’t used to them, they do have a lot of advantages. Not having to use your voice at full volume is the obvious one – and over a longer set, projecting is hard work. If you have a decent sound person, someone else is sorting out your relationship with the space and making it work. You don’t have to do anything especially odd.

However, not everyone has their own kit, not all spaces require it, and sometimes you can end up in places where amplification would have been a good idea, but there isn’t any. At this point, being able to make best use of the room acoustics becomes really important.

It’s always worth getting into a space ahead of performing and looking at how the sound works. This is even true outside – where you stand in relation to the wind direction can make a lot of odds. Sometimes the shape of the land or features in it will give you small advantages if you work with them. The two main considerations are where to stand, and where to direct your voice.

This is something to learn by trial and error. However, if you get into a space and explore how sound works, you can figure a lot out. Wander around talking or singing to the space and notice any changes in what you can hear. Some places will amplify your voice for you. Some places will give you so much echo that it gets in the way.

Below is a video of The Ominous Folk at Shrewsbury earlier this year. You can see that we’re all singing to about the same spot. We’re also stood a lot closer to the audience than the performance space suggested. This, we rapidly discovered, was the bit of floor that gave us the best volume, and we’re singing to the big of the wall that was most helpful.

When you can engage with a space so that the place itself is supporting your performance, it often feels quite magical. It’s a way of interacting with a space and connecting it that brings you into immediate relationship with spirits of place. So, even if you aren’t performing for others, bringing your voice into a place and exploring how to connect with a place through sound can be deeply rewarding.

Drops of Inspiration

Recently I had the opportunity in Gloucester to do something I greatly enjoy – getting people singing. The venue was a church – no longer in use as a church. I had support from Tom and James.

There’s only so much planning I can do for this sort of event because there’s no knowing how it will play out, how much input people will need or how fast they will move as a group. This was an amazing, responsive group who dug in enthusiastically, so we got to do a lot of different things. Including a really full and rich rendition of my Three Drops of Inspiration. Hearing a lot of people all singing something I’ve written is an emotionally intense sort of experience, heart lifting and rewarding.

We also did some playing with vowels and sounds. This is something I learned to do in a workshop many years ago and it is my understanding that it comes from a Tibetan chanting tradition. It’s very simple, you move between notes and vowels, and you just let it happen. The sounds that emerge are always striking. It tends to have a spiritual feeling to it regardless of context, but to do it in a church turned out to be especially effective.

There’s a video clip on facebook – https://fb.watch/flw9Kqh5xq/

It felt like a meaningful offering to the building itself. This wordless, soulful sound coming from a group of people and being sung to the church itself – it was mostly participants, not audience. The church has no doubt heard many hymns in its time, although not recently. It felt like a good thing to have done.

Musical plots and plans

At the moment, a lot of my time and creative energy is going into a project called The Ominous Folk of Hopeless, Maine. We’re a four person singing group, doing a mix of original stuff, covers and folk.

This all started some years ago when the Hopeless, Maine graphic novel project was invited to participate in the local book festival. What do you do with a graphic novel on a stage? We put together a mix of stories and folk songs, because folk traditions have always been a big influence. James and I have been singing together his whole life. We added Susie to the mix and last year took our first Hopeless, Maine show out into the world, debuting it at Festival at the Edge, in 2021.

We’re gigging a lot – at Steampunk events, folk things and local stuff. We’re now in a conversation about recording an album in October, which is an exciting prospect.

This isn’t my first musical project – I played in a blues rock band in my teens, gigged as half a folk duo in my twenties and have been involved in assorted things that were mostly for fun. I love performing. I love how this group works – the balance of silliness and gothic, folk horror vibes, the getting to play with kit, and the ways in which we can increasingly do things by magic.

This is performance with no safety net. We sing unaccompanied, so there’s nothing to refer to for pitch. There are also quite a few songs that start with two of us singing in harmony, and we’ve got to a point where it just happens, we simply hit the notes. We’ve learned to breathe together, and to be able to make sense of what we’re each doing even when we are stood in a line far enough apart not to be able to easily see each other in peripheral vision. I get a massive kick out of this. It’s definitely magic, no two ways about it.

Singing at the end of summer

Seasons seldom end in clear cut ways in the UK. We move from summer towards autumn and some parts of the day are significantly more autumnal than others. I noted recently about the way early mornings feel like autumn long before anything else does. Now the evenings are drawing in and the nights are colder, autumn is also here after dark.

In the daytime, it is still summery and can be quite hot. However, the days are much shorter than they were back in the summer, and this means we’ve reached the end of singing outside season. This has been an important part of summer for me both this year and last year. Amidst all the covid hazards and limitations, it’s been evident that meeting up outside is reasonably safe. I’ve run a singing circle in the park once a week.

When we started singing in 2020 the level of hazard presented by singing wasn’t clear, and there had been a lot of government restrictions on singing indoors. However, all the other evidence suggested that air flow seemed to be one of the biggest factors in people catching covid. In a well ventilated indoors space, the chances of catching it are low. A small group of people outside didn’t seem like a big risk, and we’re able to spread out and not sing into each other’s faces. We’ve all been covid-free around this.

Singing outside has been a major part of my social contact. It’s also not as demanding as socialising, because people can just bring the words for songs and take it in turns. Emerging from isolation, and most of us being either introverts or ominverts, it has been good to have that extra crutch and not need to figure out so much about how to talk to other people.

The evenings have been drawing in for some time. Darkness marks the end of the session, in part because the jackdaws come into roost and they aren’t quiet, and the key of jackdaw is challenging for human singers. Also it gets cold after dark. We’ve hit the point where this all happens too early in the evening to have a decent session, and it won’t be long before sitting out in the evenings is too cold anyway.

This autumn we may still be allowed to meet up inside. We may have some options for sheltered daytime singing sessions. I’m exploring the options. Singing has been a big part of how I’m sociable for a long time, and I hope I can keep it going through the winter without putting anyone at significant risk.

Singing the wheel of the year

Singing the wheel of the year has been an important part of my path. I’ve done it in folk spaces, rituals and with groups I’ve been singing with. It’s a simple process of bringing along songs that are in some way seasonally relevant. I’ve got something for every month, and for some months, more than one song. It’s an important part of how I celebrate, but it’s something I’ve not done much of during the last six months or so.

I’ve decided to go back to singing the wheel of the year as something I can do for supporters on Patreon.  There will be a monthly post with a recorded song, and some notes on my history with it, where I got it and whatever else seems relevant. This will be available to anyone who supports me, regardless of level. There are other level-specific things, involving fiction, a Druid book in progress and things in the post, for anyone who is really keen.

Patreon helps me afford the time to write a blog post every day. It means I can afford to spend time on projects like Wherefore  – which I am also giving away. It means there’s a space where I can plan a project like singing the wheel of the year.

At the moment, my energy levels are really poor. I’m often only good for a few hours each day before exhaustion wipes me out. Being both economically active and creative is difficult to balance in this context and I’ve had to think hard about what I can do based on what I can currently sustain.  It helps to do something I can feel good about, that lifts me as I work on it, rather than stuff that just grinds me down.

So from next week, I’ll be singing once a month. Which means making the time to practice and polish up songs – I’ve hardly sung at all in the last six months, so my voice isn’t what it could be. I’ll have that sorted out by the time I’m recording. The prompt t do this came from asking Patreon supporters what they’d like more of, and one person saying they were mostly interested in the Druidry and another asking for more songs – I have put a few up there in the past. These two things combine rather well, and it is good to have the inspiration.

I’m very glad of Patreon as a space. If you’d like to join me over there, it’s https://www.patreon.com/NimueB