The newest metaphor that I have attached to my guitar teacher (Rick Fielding) is paleogeneticist. You will recall that in Jurassic Park, the scientist was able to take tiny strands of DNA that had survived in insects in amber and make whole animals. For the moment that is impossible with real amber insects (some of the insects and other creatures are 10's of millions of years old, but their DNA is too fragmented), but with music, I have the specialist!!! I find that currently I can bring a problem to him -- here is a song on a tape that is in some weird tuning, and he can pick it off and reconstruct it. That I guess is the easy part. The fascinating part follows, where noodling little tiny chord fragments or patterns will set off in his mind and fingers, whole song styles and turnarounds and little doohickeys from seemingly every repertoire ever. I can catch some of these musical genetic fragments, but to watch him work over these tiny bits and rebuild famous songs, buried in my memory, is a joy. It is always fun, and occasionally magical.