The V to the I to the OLIN

Surely, the world needs one more fiddle player.

A couple of years ago I found a violin at a local St. Vincent De Paul that was in several pieces but not actually broken, and talked them down from $160 to $20. You never know when you'll need a violin- as a prop, a way to irritate the neighbor, a great case for a Thompson submachine gun, or even as a musical instrument.

Eventually I found Lasley and Russ violins here in Ballard for advice and repair. This shop simply kicks ass- not a descriptor I use lightly, particularly regarding violin shops. The owners are open, knowledgeable and friendly. The low-key shop is all music and cloth, hand tools and wood- the perfect antidote to the superbranded-consume-O-world that is busily strip-mining western culture. One of the owners- a cheerful, ruddy faced young fellow with a Tennessee accent, let me actually hold a working 350 year-old violin while discussing, with great skepticism, efforts to improve this timeless design. We had a long chat about historical varnishes that could be of interest only to oil painters and luthiers. I learned that Stratavarius has his critics - the violins were too loud and not as sweet in tone as older designs. What really shocked me was that on showing them this thrift store wreck of mine and pleading for understanding I was not sniffed at and promptly sent packing- instead, having explained that I'd never even run a scale on the woody squeeker, I was given a loaner while they glued my fiddle back together and requested to pay $50, if that seemed alright to me.

I would be the world's greatest advocate of market economies if it produced this sort of thing ordinarily, rather the earth devouring, soul-gobbling cult of centralized private capital that insists that the purpose of life is to accumulate capital for the whole of your healthy years so that you may - if you are wise and listen to Dennis Hopper- in your vigorous and decrepit future live on the interest, worldly ambling around the world in tasteful upper middle-class luxury, racing classic racing cars in classic racing car clothes, zipping off to Paris to live the Bohemian shopping life at 66, albeit catered, until your flabby carcass expires in the bowels of the Princess Caribbean at Montevideo, clutching $427 in casino winnings, your desicating ears listening to your stylish teal-trimmed IPOD playing a selection of freshly downloaded Led Zeppelin hits.

So as part of my core principle of manageable revolutionary goals, I started violin lessons yesterday with the Shulamit Kleinerman, a wonderful violinist with a specialty in early music. She's just the right teacher for me - walking that line between classic music and fiddle playin', teaching from playing toward reading, both encouraging and challenging. My learning strategy is to abandon my adult ego- which frankly isn't that much of a loss- and sponge it up like a kid, making big, loud mistakes from boldness rather than timidity. My hope is to learn enough to play it at a celtic, traditional folk and mild improv level, plunk out some simply classical tunes, and mostly to understand music in a way I kept avoiding with guitar all those years. (Those of you with bagpipes, be forewarned.)

And it was early music - the threads of ancient music that first began to be written down - that reconnected me with emotion in music. Most of Classical cannon, while beautiful, is a very formal kind of court music. Rock and roll sold out so hard and so often that only the very best, most fearless, skilled and reckless artists can produce anything like genuine emotion. I like traditional American folk and folk-roots, but am not fond of the hyperactive bluegrass. It was the slightly pop, somewhat slutty - in a sort of classy, gothic way - and sublime Mediaeval Baebes that got me interested again. I've stumbled across amazing choral stuff - (thanks for the Tallis Scholars ref, Laird), our local medieval radio show (Mostly Medieval ), and an astonishing modern-ancient music hybrid based on Icelandic sagas from group called Sequentia.

Here I will be for a bit, plucking away on simple major scales, relying on wood and rabbit skin glue and hand to hand craftsmanship, the note always on the verge of breaking, the thread of 1000-year old melodies to chase, trying to uncover what is essentially human.

Painting and archery and violin. These are the skills for the 21st century.