Content

• Steps
• Tips
• Warnings
• What do you need

Saw playing was once a very common form of music making in the distant past, as was the washboard, jugs, and trough. For those who want to try their hand at this unique musical endeavor, follow the steps below.

Steps

1. 1 Get a quality hand saw. Here you do not need to worry about TPI (teeth per inch), length and stiffness (metal hardness) of the work piece, and the size of the handle. Old-timers use quality saws for their business, as there were no circular saws and the like before. The Disston D23 is a good example of this, but even it is not good enough for our venture.
   • Of course, the manufacturer does not admit it, but the metal in modern hand saws is not good enough to work with this musical technique. It would be better for you to walk around the flea markets, look for working parts of the saws of the past. The condition of the teeth, or even their absence on the working part of the old saw, will not affect the game in any way.
2. 2 Bend the saw. This can be done by grasping one end of the saw with one hand and the other end with the other hand, and bending or bending in half in waves. After you have mastered the movement of the wrist in this step, you should hear a characteristic sound from the vibration of the metal.
   • Practice allows you to make "waves" in the metal of the saw blade from one end (usually the tip of the blade) to the other (where the handle is).
3. 3 When working with a saw blade, making waves, plug in your finger. This refers to touching or strumming a metal blade with your thumb, near the handle that holds it. The pressure of your finger, or simply pressing (which dampens vibration), or "strumming" the blade will change the tone, affecting the sound made by the saw.
4. 4 Work with the blade spinning motion once you have mastered the skills of changing sounds by bending, strumming, and fading out. This technique can raise or lower the pitch of the base tone that the metal produces in a curved wave between your hands.
5. 5 Develop your own sound as soon as you get the hang of it. There is no exact "recipe" for reproducing the ideal tone or specific notes, even if you managed to find some kind of "tuning" for this instrument, it will most likely be different on a different saw.
6. 6 Make a bow. Now that you have mastered the basics of sounding from the metal of the saw, make yourself a violin-like bow, it will give you the ability to extract the full range of sounds from your "instrument".
   • Drill two small holes in a flexible wooden "yardstick" or any other similar piece of wood.
   • Tie a lavsan or fishing line at one end and pull it through the hole at the other end, tightening the tension between the ends so that the piece of wood bends into a bow. Continue pulling the lines between the ends until there are 30 to 40 wraps. The "string" of your bow should lie flat, each string should be equally taut and held as close as possible to all the others. You can use hot melt glue or any other glue suitable for permanently holding the strings after they are installed.
   • Cover the bow string with wax or rosin.
7. 7 Play the bow saw. Grasp the handle with your knees while sitting in a straight-backed chair, and grasp the tip with your left hand. Begin to bend the blade as you did in the initial steps to obtain the desired sound type or specific tone. Play with your bow on the smooth or scalloped side. The difference in the amount of stress created in the metal and in the size of the plane against which the bow is attached gives different sounds; experiment.
8. 8 Use "attack" or "hammer" when playing with the saw. This technique can be used with a hammer like a drum stick. You can find a drumstick, or a small diameter wooden dowel, and press it against the blade to alter the sound. A soft “head” can be made by covering the end with twine or even rubber bands to form a small impact ball. Press the saw in different parts of the blade as you bend it in waves, which will produce different notes.

Tips

• Hold the tip of the saw as if you want to push it back into the handle without holding more metal than you need to hold. Any part of your hand on a flat surface will drown out vibrations, canceling out any sounds you make.
• Playing with a bowed saw is very similar to playing a violin or cello.
• The longer the saw, the better you will be able to control it, so the longest blade will give you a longer hum.

Warnings

• Dogs can be very annoyed with some of the frequencies produced by the saw.

Be careful with the saw teeth to avoid injury from them.

• There is a chance that the old saw has cracks, which can cause it to break when bent.

What do you need

• An old fashioned hacksaw with a good temperament