Musical Saw

[terrybooth]

I've discovered an acquaintance of mine is a musical saw player. Now, I've always thought of the instrument as a variety act turn. Not so. Stravinksy and Prokofiev composed for the musical saw and some other lesser known 'classical' composers (Krzysztof Penderecki).

Here's Stravinsky
[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLbFC_tXXx8[/BBvideo]

Musical Saw playing goes back to the 19th Century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_saw. I thought that the musical saw would be superseded by the Theremin but apparently there is still a demand amongst certain popular musicians for the sound. My acquaintance told me he is sometimes called into do recordings (often at very short notice) by artists who want the sound but don't know exactly what they want (i.e. no score).


This left me musing what would a theremin and a musical saw duet sound like? Here: make your mind up.

[BBvideo 425,350]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SPLEPdEBuo[/BBvideo]