Gezupft: meaning and use in music

Gezupft means plucked or pizzicato: set the string in motion with a finger instead of the bow.

DE gezupft bowing core term Support my free tools

How is gezupft played?

Pluck the indicated string or strings, normally with the right hand in orchestral string writing. The result is a short, clearly attacked, rapidly decaying sound compared with sustained bowing. Left-hand pizzicato, snap pizzicato and other variants need their own notation; gezupft alone does not add them.

How does gezupft sound?

short, attacked, plucked sound

In context

Vienna Symphonic Library defines pizzicato as plucking and states that the change between gestrichen/arco and gezupft/pizzicato is written in words. Helbling gives the same physical action and explicitly prints Pizzicato (Abkürzung: pizz.); Trinity also lists pizzicato (pizz.). Those sources support the Italian form pizz., not a German abbreviation for gezupft, so the German word remains written out.

Equivalent terms

  • IT pizzicato
  • FR pizzicato
  • FR pincé
  • EN plucked
  • EN pizzicato
  • DA pizzicato
  • DA knipset
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