This is a single voice narrative of one woman’s love of playing an unusual instrument and her delight of playing it in the subway. The music itself was really haunting and kind of ironic. Well known songs we all remember played on a shrilly hand saw. I loved hearing the musician talk about her love of the music, instrument and the setting. But, beyond that, there wasn’t much substance to this piece. The piece was originally produced to be part of a documentary on subway musicians. It would work well within that construct. As a stand-alone piece it needs more context, set up and framing. The piece ends abruptly, which surprised me. I thought my CD player had malfunctioned. I would encourage the producer to end the piece with some saw music to fade out with.
Review of Sawlady
Erik Nycklemoe
Posted on August 27, 2004 at 01:12 PM
This is a single voice narrative of one woman’s love of playing an unusual instrument and her delight of playing it in the subway. The music itself was really haunting and kind of ironic. Well known songs we all remember played on a shrilly hand saw. I loved hearing the musician talk about her love of the music, instrument and the setting. But, beyond that, there wasn’t much substance to this piece. The piece was originally produced to be part of a documentary on subway musicians. It would work well within that construct. As a stand-alone piece it needs more context, set up and framing. The piece ends abruptly, which surprised me. I thought my CD player had malfunctioned. I would encourage the producer to end the piece with some saw music to fade out with.