Very often players have to change very quickly from bowing to plucking and back again. This is normally when they are deliberately imitating a guitar. Very occasionally violinists may be asked to pluck their instruments holding them down in their laps. Stopped strings are harder, and the brilliant violinist and composer Niccolò Paganini wrote some virtuoso pieces with extremely difficult left hand pizzicato. It is not difficult to pluck an open string with the left hand. It is also possible to play pizzicato with the left hand (the hand which is normally doing the fingering). Cellists and double bass players can use the thumb for plucking, especially for playing chords. Sometimes more fingers can be used for particularly fast pizzicato sections. Sometimes the player may rest the thumb on the edge of the fingerboard to keep the hand steady. Bassists typically use the index and middle finger. When instruments of the violin family are played pizzicato the player usually plucks the string with the index finger (pointing finger) of the right hand somewhere over the fingerboard. When the player has to play with the bow again the word “arco” is written in the music (“arco” is the Italian word for “bow”). Instruments such as the violin, viola, cello and double bass are normally played with a bow, but if the composer wants the player to pluck instead of bow, the word “pizzicato” or just “pizz” is written in the music. The cello, on the other hand, is asked to start the chords at the top and arpeggiated downwards:īartok String Quartet No.Pizzicato means: playing a string instrument by plucking the strings (pulling a string with the finger and letting go quickly). In this example from Bartok, the violins are asked NOT to spread the chords but strike the notes together, which can only be done very loudly. You will hear that the triple stops in the violins are slightly spread:īeethoven String Quartet Op. The triple stops in this Beethoven quartet are more-or-less at the limit of what is practical for consecutive different triple stops – see the second violin part. Notice that three and four-note chords cannot be played melodically like double stops as they need either to be spread or struck with considerable force to make all the notes sound. The viola and cello play quadruple stops (four notes at the same time). 9), third movementĪ very different effect is achieved in this Bartok example, in which the double stops are all octaves, adding weight and intensity rather than richness to the aggressive texture. ![]() It is worth checking with a string player if you are unsure how practical a passage may be.ĭvorak Quartet Op. Some double stops are very difficult to effect one after another – generally, changing the interval frequently makes it harder. ![]() In addition The intervals should not exceed an octave as a general rule. This is much more common in solo and chamber music than it is in orchestral music, in which the same effect can often be achieved using multiple players.ĭouble stopping (two notes at the same time) can be played in quite a sustained way as in the Dvorak example below, but it is quite technically challenging and you should not ask for passages that are too fast or leaping. String players can play several notes at the same time and composers often require them to in order to create richer textures. where the string is pulled so it slaps back on the fingerboard (beginning of second line)
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