T he visit I had to Ripon, Wisconsin, over the weekend was notable for many things—among them an excellent amateur duet, by a violin student accompanied by her father on a musical saw. Recently, composer Ken Ueno has been interested in experimenting with bowed metal bars and sheets. This fortuitous (?gratuitous) coincidence led me to get the Stanley cross-cut saw out of my basement and explore what can be done.
A ny CMT readers who are interested in composing for musical saw should be aware that, as with any instrument, the dimensions of the material determine the pitch range that’s achievable. Almost any saw can produce musically usable sounds, but saws of 26 inches (66 cm) or longer are best. Such a length insures that the ‘sweet spot’—the lengthwise portion of the blade where a bow contacting the flat edge (not the side with the teeth) can set the blade into stable, resonant vibration—is relatively large... several centimeters long. Such a length also insures that flexing the blade in an ‘S’ shape to produce the desired pitches will not place excessive demands on the player’s left-hand strength.
T he majority of commercial woodworking handsaws are tempered carbon steel with a thickness of about 0.040 inches (1 mm). Saws that are specifically made for musical purposes (see links below) may be considerably thinner than this. The thin material allows the S-shape flexion to be achieved with less muscular effort. The preparation of the saw shape and tension before commencing the bow attack can be done more easily, compared to an ordinary commercial woodworking handsaw. The resulting intonation, vibrato, and overall musicality are undoubtedly better—with less performance risk and stress for the performer. (My own views below are informed by only cursory experience with a Stanley woodworking saw, motivated by curiosity about such an exotic instrument. Please accept these comments with a ‘grain of salt’; your own mileage may vary...)
[30-sec clip, Jim Parker, ‘Midsomer Murders Theme’, 0.9MB MP3]
[50-sec clip, Natalia Paruz, Bach/Gounod, ‘Ave Maria’, 1.6MB MP3]
T he majority of musical saws are capable of delivering pitches roughly in the range of a viola. Some 30-inch and larger saws are available and are labeled ‘bass’ or ‘baritone’, but most musical saws are evidently around 26 inches—‘tenor’ instruments. As such, it seems reasonable to score the saw using the alto clef—same as viola. The range in the illustration below represents safe limits for the Stanley hardware-store saw.
I f you decide to purchase a special ‘musical saw’, the backside edge will have been polished and prepared by the manufacturer in such a way as to be suitable to receive bow contact. I examined my Stanley crosscut saw with a magnifying glass and noted that there were some burrs along the backside edge—tiny, sharp projections that could easily damage or cut bowhairs. I removed these with a few strokes of emery cloth, followed by fine steelwool.
O rdinary amounts of rosin on the bow seem to work just fine with the saw. My own brief experiments were with a pernambuco violin bow—too delicate, really, for the 0.040-inch Stanley blade. My suspicion is that a cello bow would offer the stiffness needed to properly articulate the notes on a saw.
H olding the handle of the saw between the legs and jiggling the left leg to produce vibrato in the S-flexed saw is pretty easy. Flexing the blade with the left hand, however, is tricky and quite tiring unless you affix a handle through the hole near the tip of the blade—a technique referred to by saw players as a ‘cheat’. Acknowledging the deprecation of the ‘cheat’ by serious players and the visual aesthetic detractions of the ‘cheat’ for the audience, it seems to me that practical compositions for saw will limit the duration of saw passages to maybe one minute or less at a stretch. After a rest the saw player will have recovered the muscular control to proceed with a subsequent passage.
S urely there may be some virtuosic saw players for whom extended multi-minute passages would present few problems, and for whom the arduous gauntlet-running at prodigious tessitura would afford a proof of their freakish virtuosity. But a composer who wants to score for saw because of its wonderful, peculiar, Theremin-ish timbre ought, I think, to assume that such saw virtuosi are scarce as hens’ teeth. The typical saw artist will be a normal string player who is partial to odd and exotic things, and that sort of person will not care to (a) risk over-stress or injury to their left hand and its musculature, by the weird movements required for saw flexion, or (b) engage in extended practice and rehearsal on the metallic interloper, forsaking their belovèd stringèd axe. In other words, you’ll want to write modest stuff that’s playable without too much trouble.
T he technique of saw is similar to bowing a viola da gamba—underhanded—except for the fact that you are bowing more or less vertically. Like a viola, the saw’s size is somewhat at odds with its pitch range—too large to be comfortably played under the chin, yet smaller than would be ideal for playing between the legs. But, also like the viola, this size-pitch mismatch is probably the reason why we have such a highly distinctive, beautiful tone-color in the saw.
C hromatic passages are pretty easy to perform. Intervals of a major or minor third or perfect fourth can be navigated with little trouble. Fifths and longer jumps seem (to me) to be exceedingly risky. Safe writing for saw would stick with melodic lines—careful attention to voice-leading and no endangerment of the gristle.
T he top end of the saw has a quite distinct ‘nasal’ quality, which can be exploited for short, plaintive effects. The lower range has an apocalyptic, austere, dark sound. If you don’t like that, well, tough. (In fact, I feel that the weird, impending catastrophe demeanor of the saw down there is part of its psychological charm. It’s like a wise, dour octogenarian who perennially and insistently warns everyone in the room that there will inevitably be more serious trouble in the Middle East, no matter what the topic of conversation might be. This ‘wild card’ can have a wonderfully unsettling effect on the other party-goers. Just so with the musical saw...)
T he vibrato technique is basically the same as on the violin, though you may wish to indicate on your score that the performer may vibrate somewhat slower and wider in the lower register. A cautionary notation might be useful, to instruct the performer about the effect that you are aiming for. A musical saw has—What? I am shocked!—a propensity to bring out the ‘ham’; a simple admonishment that ‘less is more’ and that you are looking for ‘subtlety that defies temptation’ should be sufficient.
P ortamento and glissando can be readily executed on the saw—so okay to write those in your score. Obviously, trills or fingered tremolo effects are out of the question. There are no double-stops or triple-stops—at least not without severed digits or ripped trousers. Remember that the performer’s genitalia are facing the sharp teeth of the cross-cut. They (and their significant other) will long remember you if your writing is excessively ambitious.
D o not write sixteenth notes or thirty-second notes for the poor, ‘flickted thing. Doing so will win you no friends.
A rtificial harmonics? Well, my adventures in trying to produce them stopped when my dear spouse told me to “Cut it out!” I can only say that harmonics are in there, and that they will come out to play if you coax them. Touching the blade below the “S”, as the blade heads toward your lap can entice some spooky, scritchy, ethereal stuff out. Hard to control, though, so you may want to choose your practice environment more judiciously than I had done, so as not to tax your loved ones’ ears beyond their endurance...
E levations of the bow—pretty much the same as the viola da gamba, except that the excursions are more vertical. Considerable bow-speed is necessary. Maybe a right-arm “break-away sleeve” for the concert performer would be a practical solution, albeit one that would promote general “hamminess”. For studio work, the player may prefer to wear a comfortable tee-shirt...
B owed tremolo—quite effective on the saw. It has a sharp, biting effect in forte and a silken, decrepit effect in pianissimo, due to the tragic tone color of the instrument.
P izzicati are more resonant on saw than on the violin—a feature that worked wonderfully for the daughter-father duet in the Wisconsin recital last weekend. As with harmonics, the higher pizzicati are usually best left to the violins. Unless, that is, you want the thematically desultory effect of plunked saw rubbing the violin noses in “it”—an entirely valid possibility (You choose!) but more histrionic than would suit most commissions. After all, you do not want your saw opus to end your career.
A djectives in Italian applied to the saw must agree with it in gender (sola or sole, not solo or soli). Although it is the only instrument of the steel family in the feminine gender, it has probably the most masculine tone—Ueno’s bowed steel bar affixed to a timpani head notwithstanding.
O ccasional short solo passages for the saw can be of telling effect for orchestral music, although recent works tend to focus on chamber ensembles. I am not sure whether this is due to the saw’s fall from grace since the 1950s—a time when there were many thousands of saw players throughout North America.
T he solo repertory for saw is scanty—although transcriptions can be effected straightforwardly. Berlioz’s “Harold (‘The Saw’) in Italy”, for example. Or try William Walton or Walter Piston viola concerti.
L ike the viola, the saw is easily obscured or ‘covered’ by other instruments. And saws easily cover and confuse other saws. With that in mind, you will want in general to write open harmonies. Your orchestration should assiduously avoid unisons or minor seconds in the saw section. Do not, I repeat, do not write ‘tutti’ for saw.
I n the olden days there may have been up to eight saws in a symphony orchestra. They used to sit at the conductor’s right, upstage of the cellos, who would in this configuration be out of toothy-edged harm’s way should any slips occur amongst the saws. This was acoustically non-optimal insofar as the blades of the saws were in a particularly inefficient position for directing sound out to the audience. A large saw section is, I think it can now be agreed, extremely ill-advised. Probably it was a phenomenon of long-ago budgets and old union rules; maybe it was a consequence of the erratic sound projection next to the cellos; or maybe it was a marketing ploy by orchestras, leveraging the then-common amateur interest in playing saw as a parlour pastime. In any case, the chamber music idiom is far more reasonable for saw, and the saw is anyway properly a narrative/discursive force, not a ‘symphonic’ one. The era of the eight-saw orchestral section is thankfully now lost to living memory...
B e aware: the striking tone-color of the instrument, while pleasantly novel at first, can soon become cloying. Therefore, a program usually should have only one work for saw, to avoid wearing out one’s ‘welcome’. You are not aiming at a ‘comeback’ for the infamous musical saw of yesteryear! You are only seeking a nice effect with some diverting novelty, which everyone will afterwards say was just fine, yes it was, and amply justified, all things considered.
Y ou may occasionally be inclined to have saw doubling the violin(s). This will take away some of the violin’s brilliance and add weight—sometimes precisely what you want. Although unison doubling of cello by saw can be excellent, the continual doubling of the bass line an octave higher (because why? because you can’t think of anything better to do?) is a cardinal sin. The interest that can be given to inner parts can be given to the saw if you will only put your shoulder into the work. In fact, the saw player is temperamentally a lot like a good viola player and relishes exciting inner-part work as well as solos.
O n occasion, the saw may be propelled into a range higher than it is used to—to the thrill and abject bystanderly rubber-necker excitement of all concerned. Get it down from there; talk it down carefully. Tell it how deeply loved it is, and how jumping is not the answer...
R emember that the noble saw derives dignity from its sheer weirdness. People who choose to play the saw choose it because of its against-all-odds doggèdness and esoteric merits, and not because they are poor string players or too wicked or senile to play the violin.
T he saw is, quite clearly, amenable to the mounting of microphones or pick-ups for sound-reinforcement—especially for ensemble work in bars or other alternative venues. (My exploring that possibility will have to wait for some future CMT post.) But, as with other chamber music, the nuanced beauty is best appreciated in live, unamplified acoustic performance. Good luck with your bowed-metal instrument project, Ken!
[Be sure and click on the 'Comments' hyperlink in the lower left-hand corner below (if comments frame is not already open), to see Natalia Paruz's remarks!]
- Ken Ueno website
- Fletcher N, Rossing T. The Physics of Musical Instruments. 2e. Springer, 2008. (saw physics on pp. 665ff)
- Paruz N. Hark! An Angel Sings. (Arioso, 2003.)
- Scott J, Woodhouse J. Vibration of an elastic strip with varying curvature. Phil Tr Roy Soc 1992; 339:587-625. [1MB pdf]
- Weiss D. Virtuoso Saw. (CutTime, 2001.)
- SawLady.com
- Singing Saw page at NAMM
- Mussehl & Westphal Musical Saws, East Troy, Wisconsin
- NYC Musical Saw Festival 2009 (Saturday, 18-JUL, 14:00, Trinity Church, 31-18 37th Street, Astoria NY; featuring world premieres of 5 new compositions for saw by Scott Munson and Eyal Bat)
- Stanley 20-065 26-inch SharpTooth finish saw
