It’s unmistakable, the sound of a great fiddler. So many wonderful musicians play the fiddle, all contributing their unique and precious voices to the great chorus… And then there’s that maybe three percent, the cream. What makes us pay a little closer attention to that special few?

Some have that uncanny precision. In the world of fiddling, it’s a rare and wonderful talent. Some listeners find it bracing, some find it hypnotic. To be able to trust a player’s unerring ability to put the note in perfect tune with everything else that’s going on is a special subliminal gift from the fiddler, saying, “I’ve worked hard, so you can relax!”

How about wit? Complete musical sentences, humor and surprise, so that we laugh out loud with a phrase that not only completes a story, but twists our expectations at the perfect spot. We’re entranced by thestoryteller, who has mastered the byways and backroad of their instrument and can not only go anywhere, but to the perfect, unexpected place, with a surprising vista or perfect tiny garden.

It’s not fiddling without a groove! From mere toe-wiggling to flopping around on the floor like a fish, we crave the quickening heart-race of the rhythmic rub of bow on string. It’s transcendent in a way that involves the whole body, and adjusts us better than chiropractic.

And the quality least susceptible to definition? The thing that evaporates into quanta the finer we set the magnification. The heart, the soul, the clear flow of the human spirit out through a box made out of stuff that was once alive. Maybe it still is. Love, despair, innocence and hope, foolish life racing itself to ground.