When Neil Young makes his guitar sing, just stand back, soak it in and learn from the master. That’s pretty much how it went when Meryl Streep met with the legendary Canadian artist for a guitar lesson.

Streep, one of the finest actors of her generation, plays a rocker in her latest movie, Jonathan Demme’s Ricki and the Flash. The multiple Oscar-winning star has a reputation for “becoming” the part she plays, so a prep class with Young – one of the finest rock guitarists ever to strum a chord — makes perfect sense.

“It’s a little louder, that’s all,” he says as he relieves her of his Strat, in a new clip shared from the recording studio of the Jacob Burns Film Center in New York, “because I turned everything all the way up. That’s what you always do. Everything, no matter what they give you. You just go like…”

And with that, the amp goes to eleven and Young toys with his filthy-sounding guitar, shaking magic out of it. When he strikes a final, killer note, Streep bows in a motion that speaks for the rest of us. We’re not worthy.  Watch the clip below (keep an ear out for Streep’s question, “now how do you turn it off?”).