# Is there any point in pizzicato?



## Ingélou

Of all the violin music I played as a schoolgirl, my least favourite, the one I could not stand, was Perky Pizzicato. It wasn't just that I couldn't pluck fast enough, or that the tune is so irritating. I just don't like the sound of pizzicato. Compared with instruments that are meant to be plucked, like lutes, guitars, mandolins etc, a violin being plucked sounds trivial and pointless - in my opinion.
What do you think? Or do you know of a classical piece that uses pizzicato that would change my mind?


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## GraemeG

It's an effect, a garnish. So it's better in small quantities.
The last note of the first movement of Mahler 5 is a soft, dully-thudded pizz on all the strings; it has a sinister funereal air about it that concludes the movement perfectly while anticipating the screech that opens the second movement. It's great.

Also, the bridge at the end of the introduction in the finale of Brahms 1 is a very effective passage; again, for what it heralds, rather than the passage itself.

Pure pizz stuff; like that scherzo in Tchaik 4, or Britten's Playful Pizz in the Simple Symphony are just harmless novelties, really.

Pizz is most effective (and it can be very effective) used sparingly.
cheers,
Graeme


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## Ingélou

This is a very helpful answer; I note that I got Britten's title wrong. Playful Pizzicato, not, as I said, Perky Pizz. The slip shows how I feel about his tune, though. Playful is attractive; perky's a bit annoying.


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## MaestroViolinist

This is fun to play. And I love the pizzicato section, it's cool.


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## moody

MaestroViolinist said:


> This is fun to play. And I love the pizzicato section, it's cool.


Of course there is a point to pizzicato----it makes a nice plunking noise.


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## Ingélou

It's a matter of taste, of course, and in general I don't like music that announces that it's playful or humorous. Too much like laughing at one's own jokes, before you've even got to the punchline. Ditto the 'nice plunking noise'. I find it a bit 'shallow', soundwise, compared with a guitar or lute and maybe that's why it seems shallow in the philosophical sense too.


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## RonP

Pizzicato is very helpful on bass. Imagine Smetena's Muldaur without it. Good chunks of some of the Beethoven Symphonies involve pizz on bass and cello. It has its place in music.


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## Ingélou

Double bass, you mean? Ah, but that's not shallow plunking. Throaty bingg-bingging, more like.


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## kv466

Third movement to the glorious ninth just wouldn't be the same without it!


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## Kopachris

GraemeG said:


> It's an effect, a garnish. So it's better in small quantities.
> The last note of the first movement of Mahler 5 is a soft, dully-thudded pizz on all the strings; it has a sinister funereal air about it that concludes the movement perfectly while anticipating the screech that opens the second movement. It's great.
> 
> Also, the bridge at the end of the introduction in the finale of Brahms 1 is a very effective passage; again, for what it heralds, rather than the passage itself.
> 
> Pure pizz stuff; like* that scherzo in Tchaik 4*, or Britten's Playful Pizz in the Simple Symphony are just harmless novelties, really.
> 
> Pizz is most effective (and it can be very effective) used sparingly.
> cheers,
> Graeme


The scherzo in Tchaikovsky's 4th symphony is one of my all-time favorites:


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## MaestroViolinist

Don't forget Vivaldi's Winter second movement, it just wouldn't be the same without the pizz.


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## Guest

Arguably, if a violin _can _be strummed, plucked, tapped, bowed etc, then no single method of sound production has more 'point' than any other.


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## Ingélou

MacLeod said:


> Arguably, if a violin _can _be strummed, plucked, tapped, bowed etc, then no single method of sound production has more 'point' than any other.


Arguably, nothing has any point. Sorry, I have a weakness for alliteration which came into play when choosing the title. But surely nobody's going to argue that plucking the violin is as good a sound as bowing it?

Kopachris, thanks for posting the scherzo. It's good to hear another pizz piece apart from the Britten, though I'm afraid it only confirms me in my original opinion. As soon as I pressed the start button, I thought, what a trivial, knowingly-facetious sound.

Sorry!


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## millionrainbows

Pizzacatto is essential when cartoon characters are sneaking around. Sugarplum fairies, too.

"Holiday for Strings" would not exist without it.






For those too young to remember, this was used as the theme for The Red Skelton Show.


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## Guest

Ingenue said:


> Arguably, nothing has any point. Sorry, I have a weakness for alliteration which came into play when choosing the title. But surely nobody's going to argue that plucking the violin is as good a sound as bowing it?


Arguably, your point that nothing has any point is pointless: that was not my point, nor was the idea that plucking is _as good as_ bowing, merely that plucking is as valid a way of playing as bowing.


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## RonP

​


Ingenue said:


> Double bass, you mean? Ah, but that's not shallow plunking. Throaty bingg-bingging, more like.


And the problem is......


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## ScipioAfricanus

when I think of pizzicato I think of movement. someone creeping, walking or running.


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## RonP

Or in the case of "The Muldau", the pizz bass adds a little emphasis to the melody line.


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## millionrainbows

I think of Bugs Bunny sneaking up on Elmer Fudd with a big sledgehammer.

I like Webern's use of pizz in his Passacaglia,Opus 1:


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## KenOC

Well...there's Bartok.


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## Ingélou

MacLeod said:


> Arguably, your point that nothing has any point is pointless: that was not my point, nor was the idea that plucking is _as good as_ bowing, merely that plucking is as valid a way of playing as bowing.


MacLeod - I get your point! When I said pizzicato 'had no point', it was merely a pointed way of making my point. But your purport has point and can prince it powerfully over my puny plea. Pax, pax! 

KenOC - Thanks for the Bartok clip. In that piece, I have to admit, pizz works. You haven't quite converted me, but ...


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## millionrainbows

:lol:

I seem to remember a use of random, Ligeti-like pizzicato in some horror movie, depicting a horde of rats or some other vermin. Quite effective...


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## KenOC

Ingenue said:


> KenOC - Thanks for the Bartok clip. In that piece, I have to admit, pizz works. You haven't quite converted me, but ...


Want to be converted? Listen to the middle three movements of Bartok's 5th quartet.  Leave out the first and the last, though, until you're fully converted...


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## Ingélou

millionrainbows said:


> :lol:
> 
> I seem to remember a use of random, ligeti-like pizzicato in some horror movie, depicting a horde of rats or some other vermin. Quite effective...


Aaaaaaaagh!


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## Mahlerian

millionrainbows said:


> :lol:
> 
> I seem to remember a use of random, Ligeti-like pizzicato in some horror movie, depicting a horde of rats or some other vermin. Quite effective...


Brief aleatoric passages with string glissandi at the bridge and pizzicato have become horror movie cliche.


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## millionrainbows

Mahlerian said:


> Brief aleatoric passages with string glissandi at the bridge and pizzicato have become horror movie cliche.


Ha ha! True! I'm filing that one away for future use! :lol:

"Okay, at measure 54, I want you string players to rap your knuckles on your fiddles to simulate rat-footsteps in the ceiling."


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## GraemeG

The other thing to mention (having just heard my community orchestra play Shostakovich 12 yesterday) is that pizz is most effective when played by a full orchestral string section. A single pizz on one violin is a fairly hollow thing, true. But 40 strings all playing pizz _pp_ together is wonderful.
Ths effect is pretty widespread in the reperoire.
GG


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## Sid James

I'd add that the Spanish tend to use pizzicato to imitate their national instrument, the guitar. Rodrigo's _Concierto como un divertimento _for cello opens with just such a passage. So too Gaspar Cassado's_ suite for solo cello_, it has a movement consisting entirely of pizzicato.

But in string quartets is is like a garnish, which someone mentioned, I esp. like the 'assez vif' movement of Ravel's quartet. Its got this visual aspect, like some gust of wind or something. But as people said above, the technique can be decidedly spooky and psychopathic - eg. Bartok pizzicato, named for him, and also Ligeti & other masters of the genre close to our time (eg. Carter). With Bartok, and also Miklos Rosza's little known quartet which has a movement where the violin imitates the cimbalom - the instrument thats like a zither, but hit not plucked - you got that connection to folk and gypsy musics. Re Britten I'd add the movement which sounds like a sea shanty in his _Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge_ for string orchestra, the plucking there comes across as folkish too.

But I love the pizzicato polka of Johann Strauss II. Quite imaginative to do that counterpoint with pizzicato alone. & fun of course!


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## KenOC

Sid James said:


> Re Britten I'd add the movement which sounds like a sea shanty in his _Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge_ for string orchestra, the plucking there comes across as folkish too.


Saw the Variations in concert the other day. The whole violin and viola sections were holding their instruments like guitars, I assume in the part mentioned. Very unusual!


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## JCarmel

A perfect piece of Plucking-to-good-effect in the second movement of Francks D Minor Symphony, methinks....






And then there's the dead Hen No 83 that got mawled by Haydn's Bear No 82...that still needs plucking, if anyone fancies some 'Chicken wings' tonight?


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## Ingélou

JCarmel said:


> A perfect piece of Plucking-to-good-effect in the second movement of Francks D Minor Symphony, methinks....


JCarmel - just listening to your link now. It's lovely - I think you just converted me! 

What's the difference between this & the pieces I disliked? I think, that the pizz is not trying to be funny. So I'd probably like its use by Rodrigo too - in fact, I think I may have heard examples, as we had an old Rodrigo LP in my childhood.

At any rate, I'm glad I started the thread. 'You learn something new every day...'


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## PavelC

Given that today is Rimsky Korsakov's birthday, his music was playing all day, and I've observed he makes use of pizzicato a lot. But rather than making it the centerpiece of the composition he uses it for connecting two or more changeling moments. Just listen to either Capriccio Espagnol or the Easter Overture, and if you have time Scheherazade (+ many, many others). And there is where pizzicato is just perfect. Instead of presenting it as an apogee of emotion, why not use it as a mean of communication?


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## AmateurComposer

GraemeG said:


> Pure pizz stuff; like that scherzo in Tchaik 4, or Britten's Playful Pizz in the Simple Symphony are just harmless novelties, really.


Novelties?

Strauss: Pizzicato Polka





Delibes: Sylvia Pizzicato





And in response to the original poster, I do not see anything wrong with pizzicato.


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## Ingélou

AmateurComposer said:


> Novelties?
> 
> Strauss: Pizzicato Polka
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Delibes: Sylvia Pizzicato
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> And in response to the original poster, I do not see anything wrong with pizzicato.


Good! It was only a personal rumination but in any case JCarmel has converted me.  Have a nice day.


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## AmateurComposer

Ingenue said:


> Good! It was only a personal rumination but in any case JCarmel has converted me.  Have a nice day.


Regardless of who is responsible for your 'conversion' I am glad about your ability to enjoy all the sound timbers emitted by bow string instruments, including pizzicato.

I hope that you also enjoy the sound timber of other musical instruments.


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## PetrB

Well, so much for the harp as an instrument of any interest or worth, I guess... and we should then, too, just toss out that fourth movement of Bartok's string quartet no. 4.


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## KenOC

I've been a fan of pizzicato since Beethoven's Harp quartet. Bartok and Britten simply seal the deal. Well, Tchaikovsky too.


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## Guest

I know what Ingenue is driving at, but I must tell her that there are many 'bowings' that are equally ridiculous. Excessive or injudicious _*portamento*_ is one. 
Also, isn't there a fair bit of *pizz* in the slow movement of Beethoven's Emperor?
Nah, 'bor (seeing as you live in Norfolk), every technique has its use.


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## Ingélou

PetrB said:


> Well, so much for the harp as an instrument of any interest or worth, I guess... and we should then, too, just toss out that fourth movement of Bartok's string quartet no. 4.


No, I love harps. I meant, I don't like the sound of violin pizzicato. Or I didn't. 

Guilty of using a snappy title that turned out to be sloppy too. But hey, cut me some slack. I'm a newbie!


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## Guest

Ingenue said:


> No, I love harps. I meant, I don't like the sound of violin pizzicato. Or I didn't.
> Guilty of using a snappy title that turned out to be sloppy too. But hey, cut me some slack. I'm a newbie!


Dear Ingenue, your snappy (pizz) thread title has turned into an instrument with which the unkindly will beat your back. But I do see where you're coming from. I remember with horror playing in some string ensemble a piece called '"Pizzicato for a Poodle". I was only 14 or so, and I nearly gave up playing music for ever. 
You are from Norfolk, I note. I remember being on a train to Norwich (for a concert or lecture, I can't quite recall) and being asked a question by a local. He had a very strong Norwich accent. He asked me (I thought) "Do you want an orange?". I declined the offer. He asked again "_Noor_, do you want an orange?". I declined once again. The third time (somewhat exasperated) he asked "_Nooh 'bor_, _are y'goin' to Naarich_"? The penny dropped. He was asking if I was going to Norwich. Jeez, what a dialect !!


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## Guest

Redundant posting. Please ignore.


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## Ingélou

Brilliant story, Talking Head.
We've lived here for 20 odd years (very odd years) but I'm still not able to follow a Norfolk Old Boy talking fast!


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## Guest

Ingenue said:


> Brilliant story, Talking Head.
> We've lived here for 20 odd years (very odd years) but I'm still not able to follow a Norfolk Old Boy talking fast!


They are aliens, I tell you!
Nah, really, LONG LIVE DIALECTS !!!!!


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## Ingélou

TalkingHead said:


> They are aliens, I tell you!
> Nah, really, LONG LIVE DIALECTS !!!!!


Re dialects, and totally off topic - 
In Yorkshire, people use 'while' to mean 'until'. eg eating a biscuit & saying, 'That'll do me while tea-time.' On Leeds Railway Station, they had a public announcement, 'stand well back from the edge of the platform while the train is passing through'; it had to be changed.


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## Novelette

Ingenue said:


> Re dialects, and totally off topic -
> In Yorkshire, people use 'while' to mean 'until'. eg eating a biscuit & saying, 'That'll do me while tea-time.' On Leeds Railway Station, they had a public announcement, 'stand well back from the edge of the platform while the train is passing through'; it had to be changed.


Ingenue, forgive my predictability in this, but Schumann has provided a very fine example of pizzicato. 






Edit: The beginning is a good example of wonderfully placed pizzicato. The rest of this work is amazing on its own merits.


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## Ingélou

Yes, this is a beautiful blend - lovely music to start the day with. 
Thanks, Novelette.


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## senza sordino

The second movement to Benjamin Britten's Simple Symphony is all pizacato. 
It depends where you pluck to get a better sound. Especially on a violin when the strings are under so much tension and so much shorter than a double bass, you need to pluck closer to the middle of the string, not where you bow, which is nearer the bridge.


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## ClassicalGuitarist

I love the sound of pizzicato on Violin especially when its Paganini. Use all the tools you can to create different sounds with your instrument. I use it sometimes when I play guitar.


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## senza sordino

ClassicalGuitarist said:


> I love the sound of pizzicato on Violin especially when its Paganini. Use all the tools you can to create different sounds with your instrument. I use it sometimes when I play guitar.


Some of the Paganini pizzicato is left hand pluck, which you do with your little finger (right handed player) while still bowing with the right hand. Agreed, sounds great.


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## Guest

I know you specified violins in the OP - but what about cellos and basses? Is it OK for them to be plucked?

(I hesitate to name the symphony where I recently heard it.)


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## dgee

MacLeod said:


> I know you specified violins in the OP - but what about cellos and basses? Is it OK for them to be plucked?
> 
> (I hesitate to name the symphony where I recently heard it.)


I think you'll probably be safe in naming any symphony from Beethoven on. There's certainly pizz in late Mozart and Haydn symphonies and chamber music

Which is all true but I now realise (in edit) you may have been somewhat sarcastic in yr comment


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## Ingélou

I'm still not a great fan of pizzicato in 'violin family' instruments. It can sound a bit flippant to me. But thanks to your recommendations, amigos, :tiphat: I have now heard a few pieces in which it does work. It's just a personal taste, in any case. But Paganini - plucking & bowing at the same time -  gosh! I can hardly get my bow arm back in the right position after the opening of 'In the Ritz'! 

It's so nice that the thread is still going; thanks to all for the interesting and sensible replies.


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## Guest

dgee said:


> I think you'll probably be safe in naming any symphony from Beethoven on. There's certainly pizz in late Mozart and Haydn symphonies and chamber music
> 
> Which is all true but I now realise (in edit) you may have been somewhat sarcastic in yr comment


Yes, I was referring to another thread (or two) where I might have been deemed to be going on about it somewhat.

Oh, go on then, you successfully twisted my arm!

Shostakovich 11 (I'm sure it's in 7 as well)


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## dgee

But wait a sec - if the OP is not enjoying pizzicato then maybe they'd prefer some of the other sonic possibilities of stringed instruments?






Always a pleasure to plug some Lachenmann


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## hreichgott

JCarmel said:


> A perfect piece of Plucking-to-good-effect in the second movement of Francks D Minor Symphony, methinks....


That is such a perfect example of beautiful and totally un-Perky pizz. I was listening to this symphony the other day and was just beginning to tire of the first movement, which does nothing but go OMG OMG OMG over and over again. Then the second movement began with those resonant, somber pizzicati and woodwind solos, and it was a real breath of fresh air.


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## Ingélou

Actually, after a violin lesson in which I just couldn't manage to pizz 'off the beat' for the Berlin piece 'Putting on the Ritz' (grade 3 exam), I now really *do* see the point of pizzicato. As Richard, my exam teacher, says - nobody practises pizzicato, because you hardly ever do, but the paradox is that *when* you do, it has to be perfect! :lol:


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## AmateurComposer

In the 



 performance of Delibes' Sylvia Pizzicato the following instruments participate: four violines, violoncello, flute, oboe, chitarra

Is this in agreement with the original score of Delibes' Sylvia? If not, what is the instrument ensemble according to the original score?


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