SAW

Recently, I watched a great French film called Delicatessen.  It's one of those wonderfully wacky, almost surreal sort of movies, with great style, subtle wit, and a bit of gore.  It's about a butcher, who is also a landlord, who kills people to sell to his tenants, a la Sweeney Todd.  One of the main characters is a clown, who, in addition to performing some neat soap bubble tricks, plays a musical saw.

All I know about the musical saw is from an old Betty Boop cartoon, where Betty goes through a Looking Glass (or was it a grandfather clock?), Alice-style and meets all sorts of characters, one of which plays a saw.  The sound is ethereal, like a theremin, and from what I have researched, fairly easy to play, unlike a theremin.

It seems uncertain exactly who first got the idea to put fiddle bow to saw, but it seems to have originated in the Appalachian region of the US.  They became more popular in the vaudeville circuit, during the 1920s and 30s.  The saw is "played" by friction of a well-rosined bow, either violin or 'cello, and bending the bow to a shallow S curve.  The changes in how the bend is manipulated creates the different pitches.  That's really all there is to it, and with some practice, the sawer can play anything she can sing.  The saw is called for in some major works, including George Crumb's Ancient Voices of Children, and movie scores.