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    The tales of



    or, a Michigan Wolverine in the Lands of the Dragon





    On the Fiddler's life in the SCA





    My parents tell me it began when I was four or five and standing in front of the television, trying to mimick the arm motions of the symphonic violinists on the screen. That's when they decided to start me on violin lessons. :-)

    I hammed way into the lead of the elementary school musical. Reveled in a dozen All-County and All-State and Youth Symphony orchestra concerts. Played violin with the school music ensembles and sang in the school choirs. Hit New York City with my orchestra mates in 9th grade to compete and to horse around at the flagship FAO Schwartz and midnight at the Empire State Observation deck and see Cats at the Winter Theatre. It wasn't just music, either -- I *loved* art class and took it yearly right up through 8th grade, dabbled in calligraphy and origami. I was passionately in love with the arts, and that passion for the arts never flagged. Even in all the years I then turned my back on all of it.

    I took my violin to college, but didn't get the chance to play it more than once or twice in the whole mad dash to get A's in Orgo and Bio and everything else for med school. When I went to medical school, I didn't even have my violin with me. And so ten years passed, in which I didn't touch the violin at all. And then came that October evening in my last year of medical school, ensconced in the warm company of many merry music geeks at a gathering hosted by my close friend Maggie...




    In the midst of music making, Maggie's son Ernie let me borrow his violin -- and I discovered that, even after almost ten years, I could still play. I wasn't any good, of course. But I was frankly stunned I could still play at all. I literally hadn't touched a violin in more than ten years and when I was handed Ernie's violin I was honestly pretty frightened to test out just how much -- how little -- of all those years of violin still remained. I honestly thought I would have trouble making any kind of music at all. I don't think I can really describe the complete shock -- and the surge of joy -- when I realized that, even after ten years, I could still actually play.




    My friends active in the Cynnabar music community encouraged me to join them when they reassembled to prepare to perform at our Barony's yearly Grand Ball, Terpscichore. And so it was come the merry month of March I traded and swapped and arranged all my available vacation half-days during my Pediatric ICU rotation to line up with all of the musician's rehersals, and post-call Saturdays became afternoons of music-making in fellow fiddler Zach's living room. And so in between days and nights in the ICU and grinding my way through studying and reading and research manuscripts, there was crash-coursing my way through nearly two dozen new pieces of music in four weeks, made possible only by the incredible generosity of my friends and fellow musicians in being patient enough to help me get up to speed. And finally came the day itself...



    For many happy years before I had been one of the hundred dancers on the floor. This time, for the Grand Ball, for three marvelous hours we were on the musician's side of that exchange. From Amaroso to Whirlygig, from Caroso to Playford, we spun out music and the dancers spun out swirls of color and motion.

    Alex switched between flute and drum and a dulcimer he built from wood and steel with his own hands. Aaron swapped between a multitude of different stringed and drummed instruments and Jesse was one moment on her recorder, the next on the drum, and then skipping with the Irish bones taken up in her hands. Me, I just stayed with the violin from beginning to end, harmony to Zach's melody, and surrounded on all sides by friends, music and dancer alike, didn't stop smiling the whole night.

    And so it was as it was years -- decades -- long ago, before I was a pre-med, when I was still a musician. Before in order to pursue that track I gave up the violin. And before friends helped me, here at the end of the medical school road, rediscover it. Here, at the end of twenty year's journey to the Oath of Hippocrates, another gift from my friends: the wild joy and warm magic of the violin reawakened, reexperienced, reborn; and this last spring in Ann Arbor finally joining with friends in that union of minds and hearts they call the musician's art. Making music and laugther until the evening gave way to night and the stars came out to whirl above like the dancers whirling below.


    Fiddling for the kids at Maryland RenFaire

    And so now I fiddle when I can, at demos and dance practices and informal jam sessions with friends, in this way too having fun in the recreated Middle Ages. :-)


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All materials copyright Jeffrey Huo, 2005
jeffshuo@alumni.northwestern.edu