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Music symbols
-
Snap pizzicato (Bartók pizz.) -
Left-hand pizzicato (+)
- Abbreviation
- pizz.
How is pizzicato played?
Pluck the string with a finger of the right hand, usually the index, rather than drawing the bow. The ordinary pizz. state continues until arco or another explicit technique instruction changes it. Snap (Bartók) pizzicato, in which the string is pulled vertically and released against the fingerboard, and left-hand pizzicato require their own notation and must not be inferred from an unqualified pizz. marking.
How does pizzicato sound?
A short, dry, percussive attack that decays quickly, with none of the sustain of a bowed note; the Bartók variant adds a sharp slapping crack as the string strikes the wood.
In context
Pizzicato, Italian for 'plucked', is the short, percussive everyday alternative to bowing. The third movement of Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 4 is a pizzicato-ostinato scherzo, while Bartók extended the technique with snap pizzicato in the finale of String Quartet No. 4 (1928) and Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936); its sign is a circle with a vertical stroke. Publisher, conservatory and notation-manual sources consistently support pizz., and both Gerou and Lusk and an A-R Beethoven/Ries sample show arco cancelling the plucked state. Special graphical effects remain separate from the textual abbreviation.
Music theory and score context
See also
- Pizzicato (ordinary & snap/Bartók pizzicato) — Wikipedia
- String Quartet No. 4 (Bartók) — Wikipedia
- Symphony No. 4 (Tchaikovsky) — pizzicato third movement — Wikipedia
- Sound samples (free pizzicato string recordings) — Philharmonia
- Gerou & Lusk, Essential Dictionary of Music Notation — bowing text, printed p. 44
- A-R Editions score sample N079 — pizz./arco, score p. 130