My cello teacher is such a geek. I love him so. Yesterday he told me about a band he saw, Jorane. The musicians included a viola player, a guitar, and a cellist who sings. He complained that the cello, being amplified, lost some of its rich sound, which he said was a problem on the recording he bought as well. If you go to that site, the recording in question is the 2003 recording, “Jorane”, which is available only in Germany according to the website.

Brief tangent before I forget: he also analyzed the way I learn a song. I had always assumed it was like a picture coming into focus for me: blind at first, then blurry, then I could recognize individual elements, then sharper. Sort of like a big .gif file on a very slow-loading website, where you usually give up and click away before it’s finished.

But he remarked that, starting out hopeless, I get better at a song, but then it collapses and I get very frustrated, after which it then sort of comes together magically. There are a few more steps to the process, but they are similar and I don’t want to bore you.

Anyway.

You know how music creates images in your mind? And good music entire movies? You know how most pop music on the radio makes you think of, maybe, several teenagers sitting around trying to decide, Should we stay at home and watch TV or go to the mall and if we go to the mall what should we eat at the food court? But better music does more interesting things?

Listening on my commute this morning to the Jorane CD my teacher loaned me last night, I first thought, this is the perfect soundtrack for driving through frozen woods and meadows trying, on a grey morning, to decide whether they want to stay green or be snow-covered, just beautiful.

Then the music went on and I thought, there is a creature called a Grymeaon; it is the exact size and weight of a Toyota Corolla. It has six legs, like a crab that’s lost a few fights only a Grymeaon loses no fights; it’s a mammal, though, with an endoskeleton and a pelt and flowing mane like a horse, but rows of shark-like teeth and absolutely no sense of humor. You are riding one along a beach past snow-covered hills trying to decide whether they want to stay snow-covered or go green again. It’s a smooth ride on six legs, you sitting there in your barbarian saddle made from the soft skin of the asses of bureaucrats from the tax office, finely-burnished from years of sitting, and you’re feeling the afterglow from just fucking an elf who is, say, like 350 years old which is about 18 in elf years.

And you’re on your way into town to cash in a winning lottery ticket.

That’s what this Jorane album makes me see. But then I’m not a cello geek.