Musical saw

"It was an incredible sight. The dungeon was full of hundreds of pearly-white, translucent people, mostly drifting around a crowded dance floor, waltzing to the dreadful, quavering sound of thirty musical saws, played by an orchestra on a raised, black-draped platform."

- Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington's five-hundredth Deathday Party.

The musical saw is the result of the application of a hand saw as a musical instrument. The musical saw is played with a bow (cello or violin bows, or some other sort of improvised home-made bows), and produces a characteristic ethereal timbre.

There was an orchestra of thirty musical saws at Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington's five-hundredth Deathday Party on 31 October, 1992, that played a "dreaful, quavering" waltz.

Appearances

 * Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets