Saw player and instructor Gene Hardy
It’s a common misconception that the singing saw originated in the Appalachian Mountains. Here’s a hypothetical 19th-century scenario: A woodcutter plays the fiddle while on break from chopping trees until his co-worker says, “Geez, Gary, if I have to hear you play ‘Li’l Liza Jane’ one more time, I’ll saw your fiddle in two.” Gary does play that tune again, and loses his violin, so he experiments with bowing the saw, and produces haunting melodies that echo through the woods, between branches, and across mountaintops.
The singing saw (or musical saw) makes an ethereal sound. It’s ghostlike and spooky, with oscillating pitches that bend in waves, creating an eerie atmosphere. Music was written for saws as far back as the 1700s. The instrument had its heyday in the 1920s and ‘30s, when performers played it in vaudeville shows and music halls. Even Marlene Dietrich got in on the saw-playing craze. One of the earliest recordings of the musical saw is a Sam Moore album called Moooohieee!, recorded in 1926 and lost for decades until its 2002 rerelease.
These days, the Saw Lady (a.k.a. Natalia Paruz) hunts down saw players — type “musical saw” into the internet, she’ll find you — and brings them together at an annual Musical Saw Festival (currently postponed until 2013). She’s an eager, over-the-top, ambitious go-getter who busks in Manhattan. In 2009 she gathered 53 saw players to break the Guinness World Record for the largest musical saw ensemble. It sounds insane.
Toronto musicians have fallen in love with the musical saw, too, including five multi-instrumentalists: James Anderson, Stacey McLeod, Sam Ferrara, Keith Hamilton, and Gene Hardy.
From 2003 to 2005, James Anderson’s Singing Saw Shadow Show performed at venues like the Music Gallery and the Tranzac, and in less traditional spaces such as alleyways, abandoned buildings, and parks. Anderson taught seven would-be players to make saw music, and together they played sets of composed and improvised music. He added visuals to the music in the form of a shadow show, setting up a 12-by-20-foot sheet in front of saw players, three or four musicians playing non-saw instruments (drums, euphonium, guitar, etc.), two light bulb holders, and three projectionists. In later years, the shadow show’s sheet encircled the performers as one guy stood at its centre, rotating the dizzying contraption like a carousel. Their audiences experienced audiovisual cacophony, both mesmerizing and sonically innovative.
More recently, Anderson played saw on the Burning Hell‘s 2011 album Flux Capacitor. He attributes his initial passion for the singing saw to 1st Imaginary Symphony for Nomad, the first LP by Julian Koster’s Music Tapes project. Koster recently visited Toronto from upstate New York to record an album at 6 Nassau, the recording studio run by Anderson and Jeff McMurrich. Being a huge fan, Anderson was stoked when his saw hero showed up at his studio with a 7-foot metronome and bowed banjo.
Stacey McLeod’s introduction to the saw came from a website called Lark in the Morning. She’d listen to sound clips of instruments and loved the sound of the theremin, but it was too difficult to set up, so she learned to play the saw instead. Since finding the optimal microphone set-up for it was always troublesome, she and fellow musician Dave Lang experimented with mic-the-saw scenarios, blogging about them in Sawbservations. One of her favourite memories was sneaking her saw into the background of a last-song-of-the-night ensemble number with Mary Margaret O’Hara at a Tom Waits tribute. Next, she’d like to play with Jesse Winchester. Her strangest saw-related moment? Playing one for security attendants at the Vancouver airport when they pulled her aside for questioning.
Sam Ferrara was also stopped before a flight due to musical saw possession; Porter Airlines staff in Thunder Bay were amused to see one on the X-ray screen. Cops have also stopped him while biking with his saw encased on his back–it gets mistaken for a small rifle. Ferrara was a bassist and vocalist in the ‘70s and ‘80s for local punk bands, including Screamin’ Sam, the Viletones and the Ugly. He started playing saws in 2001 and uses the instrument both melodically and percussively in country-influenced bands, tapping it with the back of his bass bow to create pitched whacking sounds.
Self-taught player Keith Hamilton went to the hardware store after listening to Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, which features Julian Koster on saw. Hamilton honed his saw skills with Toronto’s now-defunct Henri Fabergé and the Adorables. The instrument has become intuitive to him; he says that playing the saw involves “pushing the vibration along instead of pulling it out, trying to keep something rolling, like a yo-yo.” Last year he auditioned to perform “O Canada” at a Leafs game, and although he impressed the judges, his saw wasn’t chosen to sing the national anthem.
Both Anderson and Gene Hardy reference Jack Nitzsche’s opening theme for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest as a first exposure to saw music. Hardy taught McLeod and Ferrara how to play the instrument, and says he’s instructed over a thousand more, even if it’s just a 4-minute lesson. One student is currently preparing a rendition of “Ave Maria” for a beauty pageant. Hardy’s played saw as jingles for a Poughskeepie porn shop and a Hawaii hardware store, in commercials for Halls cough drops and KIA cars, for musicians from the Barenaked Ladies to Veda Hille, and on film and TV scores.
These saw devotees liken playing it to speaking, saying that the instrument becomes part of their body. When playing in a band setting, unable to hear their own apparatus in the music’s mix, they know if the pitch is correct by sensing the saw’s vibrations. Coaxing sound from a saw isn’t too hard, but playing one well is far more difficult than it appears.
Saw-Playing Instructions
Purchase a saw from a hardware store, at Long & McQuade, or online from a reputable musical saw company, like Charlie Blacklock or Mussehl and Westphal. Buy a violin/viola/cello/bass bow along with resin for the bow. A decent ear for relative pitch is crucial (can’t be bought at hardware stores or online). The other requirement: patience. Sit down and put the saw’s handle between your thighs, with the teeth pointed toward your body. Bend the saw’s blade into an S-curve and bow across the blunt edge of the saw. And, of course, get additional help from saw players, either online or offline.
James Anderson is a producer/engineer and saw player at 6 Nassau. Stacey McLeod plays saw in Ronley Teper and the Lipliners. Sam Ferrara plays saw in The Cameron Family Singers, Rattlesnake Choir, and with John Borra on Sundays, 5 to 8 pm at the Communist’s Daughter. Keith Hamilton is organizing Pitter Patter Festival and plays the saw in bluegrass/folk band, Beams. Gene Hardy plays sax in Dee Dee & the Dirty Martinis on Fridays at The Reservoir Lounge and in the Gene Hardy Trio on Thursdays (staring May 17) 5:30 to 8:30 on the patio at Big Daddy’s (212 King W).
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Shari Kasman’s writing has appeared on paper, on computer screens, and on many, many Post-it Notes. Follow her on Twitter at @smkasman.
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