I was just reading this book, The Elements of Ritual (it's on my recomended reading list), and it was talking about using sound and movement to cast a circle instead of traditional words. Basicaly it's having two people, one representing sound and the other movement, go around the circle, invoking each element's pressence. Like with fire, the movement person would dance and twirl like a flame and the sound person would play the symbols (or some other fire like instrument), clashing them in unison with the dancer.
For the air section, the book recomended that the sound person use a wind instrument, like the flute. That's where I got the idea of casting a circle using just a flute.
You see, I'm a solitary witch and I still live at home with my parents and my siblings. I think they know my religous choice just from the books and other relevant objects in my room, but I don't talk about it with them. So I'm always kind of nervous about getting walked in on durring a rite or a spell. But if I could cast the circle with just playing music on a flute to represent each of the quarters instead doing a speach with a knife in my hands, that would make me a whole lot less nervous. Also, I can visualize it as being a very powerful way to raise a circle, and I bet the guardians would like the sound of a flute as well. It would raise energy without me having to dance or sing, and it would give me an excuse to go back to playing the flute.
As long as I can find segements of music that do a good job of representing the elements, and I can learn the music well enough, it would be a very elegant and beautiful way to raise a cirle. I'm going to look into to doing this and I'll write further on it once I've tried it.
