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As I pointed out in an earlier post, the Musical Saw was a favorite for performances. Although this clip of a pre- WWII vaudeville act is humorous, there is no musical saw music here.

Natalia (Saw Lady) Paruz hosts the annual Musical Saw festival (East Coast). Here is the finale of the festival – a chorus of 53 Musical Saws. A world record!

www.SawLady.com Guinness World Record for the ‘Largest Musical saw ensemble’ held July 18th, 2009 at the 7th annual NYC Musical Saw Festival. 53 musical saw players playing ‘Ave Maria’ Organist: Judy Dimino, conductor: James Bassi. Info: www.MusicalSawFestival.org

Musical Saws and Vaudeville have always been intertwined. A favorite Musical Instrument of the Vaudeville performances was the Musical Saw.
Here is a fun clip of a Vaudeville performance.

Music and dance abound in India. Travelers to the country enjoy it for the sake its beauty, never realizing that the music and dance is steeped in history, each movement conveying a message. Often worship rituals involve dances created hundreds of years ago. Each step, gesture and musical note brings with it a meaning, however subtle. The dances or India are an art.

Rajasthan is one of the most richly rewarding regions for folk dances, devotional songs and music. Professional tribal performers in brilliantly colored costumes entertain visitors and residents throughout the area. Their performances include fire dances, dramas on mock horses and cymbal and drum dances. All this is accompanied by haunting ballads and handcrafted instruments.

Originating from the chanted hymns of the sacred Vedas, music evolved to express the seasonal cycles and the rhythm of agricultural work, became interlinked with dance forms to celebrate the harvest, greet a particular season or worship a specific god.

Originally, these dances were performed in Hindu and Jain temples. In time, however, temple leaders began to consider the dances too suggestive and the ritual dancing was banned within the temples. Today, you can only find these traditional dances performed in temples at three events each year. The Khajurako Dance Festival is helfd in March. December sees two festivals, the Konark Dance Festival and the Mamallapuram Dance Festival. Visitors to India at these times will enjoy a rare treat by attending one of these festivals.

Two forms of dance worship bear mentioning, Kathakali and Odissi. Kathakali of Kerala is a male-only dance form. The performers wear colorful costumes and the dances are full of intense drama. Odissi is Orissa’s ancient dance form. The performers act out ancient myths in extravagant costumes, accompanied by musicians and singers. These dances can often be seen during the Konark Dance Festival in November.

Early man as a means of interaction, to express his inner thoughts and a means to recording events, discovered arts. The ancient caves; monuments and scripts preserved in the museums bear witness to that fact. As we evolved, so did art. Art has reached such height that now it can be classified into various categories that further have subcategories. Different regions and civilizations have different forms, which have a deep influence of the culture. Vaguely arts can be distinguished as one depicted by expressing it on a medium like paintings, sculptures, architecture, and crafts and the other having human body involvement like acting, gestures, dialogues and singing. On this basis broad classifications of arts that can be made are visual arts, culinary arts, performing arts and language art.

Ancient Greeks played a major role in the persuasion of art associating with human form, which comes under the category of performing arts. Here the human figure is used as a medium of expressing art rather than materials like stone, metal, clay or paint. But to support the human form of art, clay or metal model more vividly known as props are used to enhance the performance which come under the category of plastic arts. Some of the subcategories of performing arts are theater, dance, music, magic, opera, juggling, film, comedy, acrobatics, martial arts, and marching arts such as brass bands. Accordingly the human performers depicting these sub classes of performing arts are known as actors, dances, musicians, magician, singers, jugglers, comedians and acrobats.

The word theater also originated from the Greek word “Theatron” which means “Place of Seeing”. Plays were held on special events having religious importance, so the main idea revolved around ancient roman gods with the role of male gods being enacted with musculature, elegance and poise where as the female gods being enacted with beauty, grace and anatomically correct magnitude. Singing was also used as a means of enacting other than dialogue delivery. Along with the costumes masks were also a part of the actors’ attire. The stage was set in a realistic landscape backdrop.

During the middle ages storylines of the plays were mostly based on biblical incidences with an influence of the Byzantine and Gothic art. The Eastern art was mostly influenced by the Western medieval art. Not much concentration was paid to the realistic illustration. The costumes too were surface patterning, which means the basic color of the robe was emphasized upon rather than enhancing it by playing with light.

The nineteenth and the twentieth century saw a revolution being effected by the discoveries made during that era by Aristotle, Einstein and Newton. Light was used to modulate the color and to bring about a realistic feeling by creating an environment to absorb the audience into it. As inventions were made, traveling became very easy. This led to the influence of one culture over the other, which also globalized the western taste in theaters around the world.

As time progressed there have been diverse changes in theater arts that depicted different culture and moral values. The themes have revolved around fairytales, fables, religion, folktales, comedy, fiction, tragedy, romance, legend, history, epic, biography, adventure and material truths. The different forms of theater arts are mime, opera, kabuki, ballet, classical Indian dance, Chinese opera, pantomime and mummersÂ’ play. Today Theater Arts are as important form of art as any other arts and attracts all art lovers towards it.

Once again, Coopersville will hold their Annual Musical Saw Festival
(Note: This is last year’s flyer – so ignore the dates)

Here is another reminder about the Midwest Musical Saw festival in Coopersville Michigan

Here are the particulars

Date/Time: Oct 5, 2013 2:00-5:00pm
Location: Coopersville Michigan

More info: Link

No reservations are required – Just show up! for directions, facilities, etc. please visit the above link.

Lodging: Hotels/Motels

Thom is planning on making this an annual event so if you can’t make it this year, plan ahead for next year.

Can you imagine trying to play one of these saws?
– I do have different sizes of Musical Saws in my catalog, but nothing near this big!

Here is Natalia (Saw Lady) playing Musical Saw in the subway in New York. Great accoustics. The first time I heard a Musical Saw was a guy playing under a bridge so same effect.

Natalia sponsors the Musical Saw festival in NYC every year – more details at SawLady.com

This one is courtesy of Olivier Doucet. It is made out of Coroplast (this is the stuff political signs are made of – there should be no shortage of this considering the upcomming elections in the US!)

Materials needed:

• Coroplast,
• Utility knife
• Straightedge
• Glue Gun.

Should take you about a half hour to knock out.

Click on the picture to see Olivier’s Facebook page.

Take a look at this homemade Musical Saw Case!

Click the picture to visit the facebook page detailing how it was built. Thanks Edgar Guerreiro!