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.

Tight and thoughtful production give this piece all of the elements of really great radio. It tells a story, it gives the listener information and finally, we actually HEAR it all come together. I like radio that uses ambient sound as part of the actual story, rather then just as a generic background. I love when she describes how she creates the different pitches at the exact moment we hear them. Its interesting how much a regular carpenter saw sounds like a theremin.