Songs that use a Musical Saw

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BECAUSE I JUST GOT ONE FOR XMAS!

― jaxon (jaxon), Saturday, 24 December 2005 04:52 (twenty years ago)

i thought i had a Black Heart Procession record somewhere around here, but musta sold it.

― jaxon (jaxon), Saturday, 24 December 2005 04:53 (twenty years ago)

the first song on the Music Tapes album "First Imaginary Symphony for Nomad", (Song for Soon to Be Sailor), is the only thing i can think of in the house that has it.

― jaxon (jaxon), Saturday, 24 December 2005 04:56 (twenty years ago)

Mercury Rev performed one live when i saw them a few years ago.

― Last Of The Famous International Pfunkboys (Kerr), Saturday, 24 December 2005 05:04 (twenty years ago)

Seek out the first Flatlanders record. Lotsa saw.

― Ginger, Saturday, 24 December 2005 05:14 (twenty years ago)

A couple of Neutral Milk Hotel songs....not that I like them or anything...

― Nathaniel (Horbgorbling Slubberdegullion), Saturday, 24 December 2005 05:17 (twenty years ago)

it's all over the olivia tremor control albums...maby even the same guy

― arjun (arjun), Saturday, 24 December 2005 05:29 (twenty years ago)

yeah, music tapes is an E6 band too, probably is the same guy

― jaxon (jaxon), Saturday, 24 December 2005 05:33 (twenty years ago)

they might be giants - james k. polk

i'm fairly sure the chick in bunnybrains had one when i saw them.

― mason r butler, Saturday, 24 December 2005 07:03 (twenty years ago)

Tom Waits -- November comes to mind. Probably other Tom Waits songs too.

― Abbadavid Berman (Hurting), Saturday, 24 December 2005 07:35 (twenty years ago)

How can you not like Neutral Milk Hotel? Everybody likes them.

― Little Stevie Mason, Saturday, 24 December 2005 08:14 (twenty years ago)

I mean, everybody but you. I guess.

― Little Stevie Mason, Saturday, 24 December 2005 08:19 (twenty years ago)

Ghost - My Hump is a Shell (Lama Rabi Rabi)
Although it's more of a solo, I suppose...

FWIW, I don't like Neutral Milk Hotel either! (I dig Hawk & A Hacksaw, though)

― Rombald, Saturday, 24 December 2005 09:07 (twenty years ago)

here are some amazing mp3s. kinda corny and christian, but whatever, the dude's impressive. also make sure to check out the festive christmas tracks at the bottom.
http://www.pilgrimproduction.org/mississippi/singing-saw/singing-sawcat.html

― jaxon (jaxon), Saturday, 24 December 2005 11:38 (twenty years ago)

Isn't there one in "Good Vibrations?"

― billstevejim (billstevejim), Saturday, 24 December 2005 15:26 (twenty years ago)

anything by The Singing Saw Orchestra

― brokenfuses (brokenfuses), Saturday, 24 December 2005 17:31 (twenty years ago)

seek Jack Nitzsche's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest OST for its finest utilization, alongside wineglass, dobro, orchestra, and Indian tom.

― imbidimts, Saturday, 24 December 2005 18:13 (twenty years ago)

This one time I was at Bumbershoot, and these two young women were playing "Freight Train" (freight train, goin' so fast) on accordion and musical saw. It was pretty amazing.

― clotpoll, Saturday, 24 December 2005 19:32 (twenty years ago)

I actually do like NMH a lot, it was a poor attempt at irony or something, as I know they're hated on a good deal around here.
(A Hawk & A Hacksaw are totally great, too.)

Whoah! I just downloaded that Ghost song and was going to reference it, but I couldn't decide whether it was singing saw or theremin.

― Nathaniel (Horbgorbling Slubberdegullion), Saturday, 24 December 2005 20:53 (twenty years ago)

I think Cul de Sac banged on one for a while. Coctails?

― Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Saturday, 24 December 2005 20:56 (twenty years ago)

flaming lips use it all over zaireeka, unless i'm thinking of some other instrument that sounds like a saw, or its just in the first track on the album and i can't get the same song to play on all four cds.

― travis randy, Sunday, 25 December 2005 05:15 (twenty years ago)

Stereolab, "Caleidoscopic Gaze"

― Deluxe (Damian), Sunday, 25 December 2005 22:41 (twenty years ago)

dame darcy is a saw-player, fwiw.

― Forksclovetofu (Forksclovetofu), Monday, 26 December 2005 00:24 (twenty years ago)

There's one on the last track on Sarah McLachlan's Surfacing. It won a Grammy, I think, for instrumental performance or somesuch.

― phil d. (Phil D.), Monday, 26 December 2005 02:12 (twenty years ago)

The track won a Grammy, that is, not the saw.

― phil d. (Phil D.), Monday, 26 December 2005 02:13 (twenty years ago)

I didn't know a musical saw was any different from a regular saw. Interesting.

(saw was saw was saw was)

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Monday, 26 December 2005 02:36 (twenty years ago)

there's a special saw that one uses as a musical saw?

the loveletter band use it all over the place. i've seen them buy a saw before the show and then play it on stage. and it was a plain old saw.

― Dan Gr (certain), Monday, 26 December 2005 19:01 (twenty years ago)

it's not necessarily a different saw, but you can buy packages with a bow, rosin and a "cheat". this is the one i got. http://www.musical-saw.com/orderp.htm

i kinda wish it didn't come w/teeth as i sometimes freak out that i'm gonna loose my grip of it while it's fully bent and it's gonna go flipping around and scratch my face off

― jaxon (jaxon), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 07:46 (twenty years ago)

The teeth aren't sharp, duh. You couldn't cut shit with that saw, son. You'd just press it with a zig-zag pattern.

Any saw can be musical, you have to be strong enough to bow it, and for some simple reason I can't explain it needs a hole drilled near the nose.

By the way, Broomstick Bass is a great VSTi plugin.

― Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 09:34 (twenty years ago)

Isn't there one in "Good Vibrations?"

nope, and it's not a theremin either afaik - it's a keyboard/organ thing.

tindersticks use a saw in various songs, but you'll have to ask someone else to name them cos i'm buggered if i can think of specifics.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 11:07 (twenty years ago)

i kinda wish it didn't come w/teeth as i sometimes freak out that i'm gonna loose my grip of it while it's fully bent and it's gonna go flipping around and scratch my face off

Industrial music revival?

― Rockist_Scientist (RSLaRue), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 12:42 (twenty years ago)

On M'Boom's Live from S.O.B.'s, they do Body & Soul with a musical saw playing the melody.

― Jordan (Jordan), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 13:54 (twenty years ago)

it's actually an electro-theremin in "good vibrations":

Did the Beach Boys use a theremin on the recording, Good Vibrations?

No. The instrument was not a real, traditional, two antenna-type theremin. It was the Electro-Theremin, a mechanical instrument developed for Paul Tanner by Bob Whitsell in 1958. In addition to Good Vibrations, two other Beach Boys tunes used Tanner and his Electro-Theremin, I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, and Wild Honey. Also, there appears to be another (possibly unreleased) tune, Inspiration, that Tanner recorded in 1966 for the Beach Boys.

What is an Electro-Theremin?

An Electro-Theremin is the creation of actor/electronics wizard, Bob Whitsell. It is a mechanical controller of an audio oscillator. Whitsell invented the first one in 1958 and it was with this instrument that Paul Tanner recorded Music from Heavenly Bodies. Several weeks later, Whitsell began designing an improved version, one that was played in a straight, linear movement of the hand (as opposed to the first version's arc-like movement). It was with this instrument that Tanner recorded the numerous TV and movie soundtracks as well as the LP, Music from Outer Space and the three Beach Boys' tunes.

(from electrotheremin.com)

― spastic heritage (spastic heritage), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 14:08 (twenty years ago)

Kev Hopper's "Whispering Foils" record is a musical saw fans holy grail.

― kwhitehead (stephen schmidt), Tuesday, 27 December 2005 18:58 (twenty years ago)

Check out Trailer Bride/Melissa Swingle stuff.

― JC-L (JC-L), Tuesday, 3 January 2006 21:45 (twenty years ago)

'Hark! An Angel Sings' is a saw album. It can be heard here: www.cdBaby.com/paruz

www.SawLady.com has a whole list of musical saw recordings, as well as movies with saw in thesound track.

― Misha w. Azoo, Sunday, 8 January 2006 13:51 (twenty years ago)

'Hark! An Angel Sings' is a saw album. It can be heard here: http://www.cdBaby.com/paruz

http://www.SawLady.com has a whole list of musical saw recordings, as well as movies with saw in the sound track.

― Misha w. Azoo, Sunday, 8 January 2006 13:54 (twenty years ago)

Kev Hopper's latest, an ep called 'Saurus', is for my money the best saw music ever made. Hopper played the saw with Stereolab, and is a stunning fretless bass player to boot (check out his band 'Stump' from the late '80's for that). Anyhow, Saurus is worth every penny and should be hugely famous. He's one of the few that doesn't play it for 'novelty schtick' but as an expressive instrument. The ep is bookended with the best tracks, the last one being a dreamy, metallophone-laden track that fondly nods to Steve Reich's 'Music for 18 Musicians', and earns the cost of the CD right there. Cool cool cool.

― keith-l., Friday, 13 January 2006 15:29 (twenty years ago)

Seek out the first Flatlanders record. Lotsa saw.

Absolutely. The band says that the original mixer put the saw too high in the mix. The original tapes are all gone so they've never been able to mix the saw back down where they wanted it.

― Edward Bax (EdBax), Saturday, 14 January 2006 04:05 (twenty years ago)

Yep, I think every Trailer Bride album has some musical saw on it, and Swingle's current band, The Moaners, has musical saw on the last track. She also does some killer wah-wah banjo.

― bendy (bendy), Saturday, 14 January 2006 05:08 (twenty years ago)

"Whine De Lune" the is the Trailer Bride album to start with.

― bendy (bendy), Saturday, 14 January 2006 05:08 (twenty years ago)

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