Musical Saws Are Cutting Edge

Can a musical instrument that's been around for more than 300 years be truly cutting edge?

Maybe, if the instrument is the musical saw.

The musical saw is basically the same as handsaws found at the Home Depot. In a pinch, one of those can be used to make music.

However, to get the most range, it helps if your saw is made out of bendable metal. That's because the saw is played by sticking the handle between the knees, holding the blade in an "S" shape and playing it like a violin.

Bianca Lara switched to the saw from the violin and says the biggest snag came when the teeth sliced her fishnets.

In the hands of a master, the saw can sound beautiful, almost like a human voice. In fact, sometimes it's confused for one, according to Bianca Lara, a self-proclaimed "sawist" who adopted the saw six months ago after she saw the possibilities.

"I was playing the saw the other night with my band, Gypsy Groove, and the chef thought a human was singing," Lara told AOL News.

Lara, who enjoys playing less-appreciated instruments such as the toy accordion and glockenspiel, picked up the saw as her personal mission and swore not to play it in public until she hammered out "Ave Maria," the song that all "sawists" should play, in all the keys.

But she wasn't able to hold out that long.

"I have to play it at shows," she said. "People love it."

Lara is trying to take the saw to places it's never seen.

"I do it with a lot of hot jazz -- I don't believe it's ever been played in that genre," she said.

Well, there's a reason for that, says Natalia Paruz, who is considered the Jimi Hendrix of the musical saw.

"[The saw] is really best on slow ballads with lyrical melody lines," said Paruz, who is known as the "Saw Lady." "For instance, you can play 'Flight of the Bumblebee' on the violin, but not on the saw -- it's too fast."

Lara admits she didn't realize how hard the saw was before she started.

"Since I played violin, I thought it would be easy, but it's not transferable at all," she confessed. "On a violin, you use the bow over a certain area, but with the saw, you're moving it up and down while bending the saw.

"I literally had no tone for the first month. I had to use a mallet instead of a bow to find the sweet spots."

Natalia Paruz has played the saw professionally for 17 years and is considered the Jimi Hendrix of the instrument.

Once she was ready to play in public, she hit another snag -- literally.

"The teeth on the saw point towards the player, and I wore fishnets to the first gig and it got stuck on the hose," she laughed.

Although Paruz and Lara are women, the saw has long been a male-dominated instrument.

"It started about 300 years ago by lumberjacks who discovered that the big two-man saws could be used for music," Paruz said. "There really isn't a place of origin; it seemed to have popped in different places at the same time."

Unlike the olden days, when the saw doubled as a tool for work during the day and an instrument for play at night, Paruz believes it takes a special kind of person to play the saw.

"It's certainly not an instrument your mother makes you play," she said.

Paruz found the saw at a low point in her life.

"I was a dancer and worked with Martha Graham, but when I was run over by a car, that put an end to that," she said. "My family took me to Europe, and when I saw a man playing the saw, it was the first time I was excited about something besides dance."

That was 17 years ago, and now Paruz is carving out a lucrative career performing with everything from country and folk bands to classical quartets and even commercials.

But that isn't enough for her.

"One of my goals is to start a musical saw school, because they don't teach this at Juilliard," she said.

And there's not a huge market for them either, according to Mary Kay Dawson, owner of Mussehl & Westphal, America's biggest manufacturer of musical saws.

"We sell a few hundred a year," she said. "Last year was good, but this year is slow."

In a good year, the company, based in East Troy, Wis., sells about 500 saws, which come in a kit that sells for $86.

"There's a segment of people who would laugh at it," Dawson admitted. "But many people love it."

Especially people like Lara, who is a now a saw addict, jonesing for her next fix.

"I'm saving up to buy a $600 saw," she said. "I just got an $80 donation from a Canadian I met through Facebook, so now I only have $520 to go."