Natalia’s dedication to learn her new found instrument has opened the door for sev-eral other opportunities and activities. She notes, “I founded a festival, the NYC Musical
Saw Festival, now in its tenth year (www.MusicalSawFestival.org). The festival promotes
the musical instrument I play. Instead of being in competition with other people who play
the same instrument I do,I bring them together. There is more power in joined forces.
Also, I organized a Guinness World Record for the Largest Musical Saw Ensemble.
We broke the previous record of twenty-eight musical saw players, that was made in
Poland, with fifty-five musical saw players in NYC. This got us world acclaim and recog-
nition.” I don’t know about you, but my hat is off to Ms. Paruz. She’s quite a remarkable
woman and musician.
Private instruction is another typical method. The trick is finding a teacher who
knows his or her stuff, is someone you can get along with and respect. After I bought that
first guitar, I signed up for lessons at the music store where I bought it. It seemed a logi-
cal thing to do. As for my teacher, in retrospect, I’m sure he was a nice enough guy, but as
a kid I couldn’t relate to him at all. He seemed to me, at the time, to have one foot in the
grave and the other on a banana peel. By the third lesson he uttered that fateful
word–“Recital.” That was it. I was done and out of there.
Nonetheless, private music instruction brings with it many benefits. You choose the
teacher. In many cases, lessons are held in your home. Probably, the biggest benefit,
though, is the ability to learn at your own pace. Who knows, you might even get lucky
and score some candy like I did.
For many professional musicians, the start of their education was elementary or sec-
ondary music classes, band or orchestra. Teachers are something of the luck of the draw