A NYC subway musician and musical saw player tells what happens when she plays in the subway

• Playing for Pocket Change
• An Elevator Has Two Sets of Doors
• Poetry and Art
• I Think of You When You’re Not Here
• Words, Images and Music

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• 59th street & Lexington
• busking
• Herald Square
• Music Under New York
• musical saw
• Shuttle
• St. George Ferry Terminal
• Times Square
• Uncategorized
• Union Square
• Whitehall Ferry Terminal

When I was playing at the Music Under New York busking spot at 59th street & Lex subway station, Mark and Michael of ‘Suddenly Tragic Productions’ stopped by to chat with me. They asked me a lot of questions. Of course I knew they were filming, but what I didn’t know at the time was that they were using all sorts of interesting lenses. I only learned about it from watching their video: (turn off the music player at the right-hand side of the blog before starting the video)

Thank you, Mark and Michael for a beautiful video!

Non-subway gig alert:
This Thursday, July 29th, I’ll be playing the musical saw with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra at Symphony Space. This concert is recommended by the New York Times (scroll down to ‘Manhattan Chamber Orchestra’)

Also

Saturday, August 7th, 2pm, I’ll be playing the musical saw with a 10 piece jazz band at the NYC Musical Saw Festival (go to the festival’s website to print a flyer with all the details).

If you attend either of these gigs - come and say ‘hi’!

When I was busking at the 14th street subway station, a teenager named Art rubbed my musical saw with his hand three times and said: “can I have three wishes?” He then went on to say: “I wish you’d play that song I like”. As I’ve seen him before many times I knew he meant the song from the movie ‘13 Days in France’, so I played it.

A gentleman told me his name is Jose and asked me if I know Armand. Armand is a homeless guy who was sitting on the bench before, clapping his hands after each song I played. Jose told me that Armand told him that he is my friend. Jose said Armand is very wise and much older than what he looks. He knows how to stay young and to have his hair not turn white.
Jose had a bag of food he wanted to give Armand, but I couldn’t tell him where to find Armand. Jose asked me to tell Armand that he was looking for him, if I see him again.

When I was done busking for the day, I took the elevator down to the platform together with a lady. When the elevator got to the platform the doors opened and… there was another set of doors that remained closed. We could see a guy waving his arms in frustration on the other side of the closed doors. He wanted to take the elevator up. When we realized the doors won’t open, I pressed the ‘up’ button. The set of doors that were open didn’t close… I pressed the ‘close doors’ button and fortunately the doors closed and the elevator took us back upstairs. This end, the doors did open. The lady and I were very happy that we didn’t get stuck and we learned that an elevator has two sets of doors…

This Thursday, July 29th, I’ll be playing the musical saw with the Manhattan Chamber Orchestra at Symphony Space. Please click on the invitation above to enlarge and print. This concert is also recommended by the New York Times (scroll down to ‘Manhattan Chamber Orchestra’ )
If you attend the concert - come and say ‘hi’!

If I didn’t play the musical saw in the NYC subway, I would miss out on meeting some of the most wonderful people in the world whom I’ve met in the subway.
One such gentleman is Jeffrey Dayton, who surprised me with a beautiful poem he wrote:

You are the saw lady Natalia Paruz

Your spirit unwaivering you will never lose

Let your fingertips guide you through each melody

Your heart is pure it is easy to see

Don’t ever stop your battle is won

You know if you play they most definitely will come

Painting of Natalia ‘Saw Lady’ Paruz by Aaron Porter

Thank you Jeffrey, Aaron and all the other people I met in the subway.

As I was playing ‘Over the Rainbow’ while busking at the 14th street subway station, Joe Lucas, the homeless guy with the hook arm, showed up. I haven’t seen him in months. He went to Montana to visit a friend and then to Rhode Island to visit his sister. It was wild that he showed up right as I was playing his favorite song.
“Why did you come back to New York?”, I asked him.
“Because I missed you!”, he said.
He sat on the bench for a while. He then asked me to play ‘Over the Rainbow’ again. After listening to it he walked down to the uptown train platform, waving good-bye to me.

A lady told me that her youngest brother died two Fridays ago. He was 61 years old. He came home from church, ate, watched TV and all of a sudden his wife heard a strange noise. She came into the room and he was dead. It was a sudden heart attack. The lady told me that they used to be 10 kids in her family. By now it’s only her and her little sister left.
I told her that she has a lot of angles watching over her. She said she feels it.

A lady said to me: “I think of you when you’re not here”.

A guy said to me: “I’m sorry I don’t have any change but I like what you do a lot”.

When I got to the 34th street subway station I heard a voice saying “Saw Lady”. I looked around and saw two ladies talking but it didn’t look like it was them calling my name.
I kept walking and I heard the voice again. I looked around.
From a dark corner a homeless man with a full shopping cart was waving to me.

Photographer: © Rod Goodman (from his Buskers Project)

Bo, Romero and the 3rd acapella singer came to say ‘hi’. We all agreed it was slow today. “Tomorrow will be slower”, they said, because of the big U.N. meeting.
They told me that Chill, the other man who sings on the trains with them, is home suffering from lung desease. He has to use an oxygen tank. He is going crazy because he can’t come out and sing in the subway. “He sings along with every TV commercial because he misses singing so much”, they told me. He hopes to get a portable oxygen tank so he could come out and just hang with the acapella singers as they walk the trains.

A Hassid wanted to buy my CD. He asked me repeatedly if there are any lyrics on the recording: “No words?”. I didn’t know if ‘no words’ on the CD is a good or a bad thing for him, but I told him that there are no words in the music on my CD. It’s completely instrumental.
He asked me how long the CD is. I told him don’t know, but there are 12 tracks - some are two minutes long, some are 6 minutes long, some are in between.
He bought the CD and immediately opened it and threw the front insert into my donations bucket.
“You don’t want the insert?”, I asked. I have never met anybody who didn’t want the insert before.
He explained that it’s because there is a picture of a woman on the insert (me). The same picture is also on the disk. He needed to cover it. He asked if I have a sticker. I peeled a sticker off from my amp (which was there from the time I had my amp fixed) and he put it on my image on the CD.
Now he said he can use the CD.
The strange thing was that the Hassidic gentleman was worried about words in the music and about the image of a woman on the CD - but he still bought the CD even though it’s a Christmas CD!

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"Natalia Paruz,a soulful, beatific presence as she renders classical pieces on her carpenter's saw"
Back Stage.

ALSO.... Please check out my MP3 page where you can listen to me playing the musical saw. You can also download my music there.
Also please check out my website www.SawLady.com

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  Countries where I have buskered, my Donations Box, Unusual things that people put in my donations box, Foreign Currency I found in my donations box in New York, General thoughts about busking

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