“Music as Ritual” is the first pathway in Pathways to Music. In the book, I emphasize three frequently cited characteristics of ritual: complexity, community, and transformation. By complexity I mean the tendency of rituals to include elements – gestures, images, sounds, etc., often used in set combinations and sequences – the meaning of which is not clear to outsiders. To say outsiders implies that there are insiders: this is the community of people who do understand aspects of a ritual and who participate in enacting it. Through a ritual, some sort of transformation or change takes place – sometimes an invisible, inner one, sometimes a visible, outer one, and sometimes both. See the blog entries on Music as Ritual here, and feel free to contribute your own!