Imagine your mind stretched like G, D, A, and E strings along the neck of a violin, tuned to a tensile uncomfortableness that causes the neck to creak under the strain.
Imagine a bow, horsehair cranked to within an inch of its breaking point, shredding atop the strings, the sounds looping, condensing, combining, throbbing in anguish.
Imagine the tuning pegs laboring under the pressure of the performance, gripping the strings with every ounce of effort in their manufactured forms.
Imagine real Ache violently emanating from the vibrating strings and traveling down them, past the bridge, into the exact center of your brain.
Imagine the actual emotional upheaval exhibited in the strength, the control, the chaos, and the wreckage, the powerful terraforming and the recreation and regrowth it engenders.
No — don’t imagine it.
Experience it.
Alex Cunningham is one-third of Vernacular String Trio. Ache is available on CD from Personal Archives in an edition of 100.
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