Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: Sawtooth (Read 8867 times) previous topic - next topic

Sawtooth

I'm just wondering. What is a sawtooth instrument?

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #1 –
You may well ask! Since this is Aprils Fools Day, I thought of giving a facetious answer, but I shan't!
The "sawtooth" referred to in the instrument description is not actually an instrument. It refers to the shape of an artificially generated wave form. The wave form of a pure sound with no harmonics appears as a sine wave (a smooth curve). The sawtooth sound is generated by superimposing harmonics until the wave looks like a zig-zag, or "sawtooth" - hence the name.

RObin

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #3 –
Hi:

An instrument exists named handsaw. At the beginning a handsaw was utilized truthfully. With the time,it was changed for a leaf of steel that is rubbed with an arch. It utilize Katchaturian in their Concert for piano. It has a rasped sound, (type flute of Pan) and it is very beautiful.

Bye...Bye

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #4 –
In fact, there is a bronze statue of a man playing a handsaw in downtown Santa Cruz, California. He was someone of local repute, many years ago.

But I believe the "sawtooth" question was about the general MIDI patch by that name. It was explained above. The sawtooth waveform has a non-musical application in things such as TV monitors - it is used to sweep the electron beam across the face of the tube, then quickly return the beam to the other side.

Why would MIDI have a sawtooth waveform? Could be for the distinctive sound. Could be that it is easy to synthesize (approximately). The sawtooth waveform sounds nothing like the sound of a bowed handsaw. They are not at all related.

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #6 –
Actually, the Khachaturian Concerto for Piano and Orchestra does not have a part for saw.
The instrument is called a Flexatone, which probably evolved from the saw, but the method of sound production involves a rapid shaking of the instrument, causing it to be struck on both sides (pitched clanging!).  The saw is usually bowed (not struck).

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #7 –
There seems to be quite the resurgence of "real" saw players. The sound is haunting and very reminiscent of the theremin. And yes, they use real wood-saws.

Interestingly, there's a fellow named Robert Froehner in Texas who is both a thereminist and musical sawyer. Have a look at his interesting Saw and theremin page

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #8 –
Ah, I thought that the hand saw sounded like the Theremin, too! But I haven't heard enough of them to judge accurately.

Here in Santa Cruz, there is a university, so odd things happen - such as the Theremin.
 

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #9 –
I remember one particular village fete when I was about 12, where the music in our local village hall was provided by an unusual trio - piano, saw (yes a real one, played with a violin bow) and musical spoons. I don't remember what was played though. The saw provides a very unearthly type of quivering sound - quite haunting.

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #10 –
Sounds like it's time to get out the ol' handsaw...

Geoff

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #11 –
An example of a musical saw in "serious" music is found in the incidental music to the film Spellbound.  My father had an album of 78s of music from the film.  (Of course that was in the days when an album was a real album - a bound folder about 2 inches thick.)  My favourite was the disc (equivalent now to a track I suppose) called "Terror on the Ski Run" which was where the saw was featured.  I've not heard it for over thirty years.  I must ask him whether he still has it.

Stephen

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #12 –
Following my earlier reply I did some surfing to see if I could buy a CD of the soundtrack music.  It seems that it was not a saw but a theramin that I heard.

It just shows how long it takes to realise the limits to one's father's omniscience - he told me it was a musical saw and so I've spent 30 odd years believing it was.

Stephen

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #13 –
Ha! I love it. If anything, this underscores the sonic similarities between theremin and bowed saw. Robert Froehner has some great recordings of both, available for free download from his site mentioned above.

The theremin part of the Spellbound soundtrack was, in fact, played by Sam Hoffman, one of the greatest thereminists of all time. I have the Spellbound CD (Stephen, drop me an email if interested), but I believe that the soundtrack to "The Day The Earth Stood Still" is by far the better one. Still stunningly beautiful after half a century.

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #14 –
For those still interested in the sawtooth wave form: In 'old fashioned' analog synthesizers both square waves and sawtooth wave oscillators were used as the source of sound. A sawtooth is the sum of all (n) harmonics (sine waves full octaves up of the ground note sine and in phase with the ground note). Their amplitude deminishes with 1/n (where n is the harmonics number: 1 for the ground note, 2 for the first harmonic, etc, as in =the sum of (1/n)*sin(n*w*t)for n=1 to infinity). Square waves follow the same rule, but only contain the odd harmonics. (I didn't double check, but I seem to remember that the even harmonics produce a triangle shape.)
Both wave forms are easily generated electronically. By filtering the sound can be shaped, which is called subtractive synthesizings. Filtering out harmonics is easier than adding harmonics. Additive synthesizing means harmonics are added. You would have much more freedom that way because amplitude and phase of the harmonics could be changed, but it is way more complicated to do in the analog domain: it would require extensive banks of oscillators (one for each harmonic and additional phase shifters) that are difficult to keep in tune. With modern digital sound processing, additive synthesizing should be less complicated, but I am not shure if they are available.
Hope this helps.
Marcel

Re: Sawtooth

Reply #15 –
There is a website with info about the musical saw, theremin and flex-a-tone and how they are all related:
http://www.sawlady.com
There is also a composers manual for the musical saw