Columbus native McGinty Chilcutt is a third-year medical student at the University of Mississippi Medical Center whose immersion into the world of medicine goes hand in hand with his love of music.
Despite his hectic schedule as a third-year medical student, Chilcutt makes time to practice and play his violin whenever he can. It’s something vastly separate from the medical field. It relaxes him.
“They just saturate your entire life with medical knowledge (in med school),” he said.
McGinty, son of Jack and Laurie Chilcutt, grew up in downtown Columbus and attended Heritage Academy through 10th grade before transferring to Mississippi School for Math and Science. It was in Columbus that he began playing the violin at the age of 3. He took violin lessons from instructors in the Columbus Suzuki String Program until college.
Chilcutt didn’t always practice the way his parents and instructors wanted him to. Rather than play exactly what the music asked for, he would change things in the music or just strum around until he found different tunes when he was practicing, he said. Some instructors accused him of “playing around.”
“I was not very good at following (the instructors’) rules sometimes,” he said.
His playing around paid off in college when Chilcutt began hopping up on stage with different bands and improvising a violin part to go with whatever music the band was playing. He did this in Birmingham where he went to college, as well as in Nashville, Jackson and New Orleans.
“When I play with a band, it’s very much improvisation,” Chilcutt said.
After starting med school at UMMC, Chilcutt’s improvisations led to his permanent inclusion with the band “Four Hearts, One Beat.” Each band member was a UMMC student when the band got together. All but Chilcutt have since graduated, but the others will all continue their training at UMMC in Jackson.
“We’ll probably continue playing as long as their schedule allows,” Chilcutt said. “They’re going to be a lot busier than I am, I think.”
The band had the chance to play for a medical conference at House of Blues in New Orleans in April. It was an enjoyable experience for Chilcutt, who said at the time he didn’t know about the House of Blues’ musical reputation.
“For me it was just a fun opportunity to play in New Orleans,” he said.
Chilcutt’s favorite thing about playing with the band is improvising to those upbeat tunes like “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” On his own, he prefers classical music, such as Bach’s Sonatas for solo violin. He grew up playings those pieces and compares playing them to staring into flames.
“There’s almost a hypnotic quality to playing some of these pieces,” he said.
Chilcutt still tries to get in at least a half-hour long practice at least once a day. Even as he continues his medical training, he still thinks of music as his first love.
“I spent so long building a skill, I just couldn’t bear to see it go away,” he said.
He imagines that medicine will become more a part of his life as he furthers his education and spends more time immersing himself in it. But three years of medical school can’t yet compete with 20 years playing the violin.
“Music is more a part of me than medicine is,” he said.
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