What is Pizzicato?
'''Pizzicato''' means: playing a [[string instrument]] by plucking the strings (pulling a string with the [[finger]] and letting go quickly). Instruments such as the [[violin]], [[viola]], [[cello]] and [[double bass]] are normally played with a [[bow (music)|bow]], but if the [[composer]] wants the player to pluck instead of bow, the word “pizzicato” or just “pizz” is written in the music. 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”). ==How to play pizzicato== When instruments of the violin family are played pizzicato the player usually plucks the string with the [[finger|index finger]] (pointing finger) of the right hand somewhere over the fingerboard. Bassists typically use the index and middle finger. Sometimes the player may rest the thumb on the edge of the fingerboard to keep the hand steady. Sometimes more fingers can be used for particularly fast pizzicato sections. Cellists and double bass players can use the [[thumb]] for plucking, especially for playing [[chord|chords]]. It is also possible to play pizzicato with the left hand (the hand which is normally doing the fingering). It is not difficult to pluck an open string with the left hand. Stopped strings are harder, and the brilliant violinist and composer [[Niccolò Paganini]] wrote some [[virtuoso]] pieces with extremely difficult left hand pizzicato. Very occasionally violinists may be asked to pluck their instruments holding them down in their laps. This is normally when they are deliberately imitating a [[guitar]]. Very often players have to change very quickly from bowing to plucking and back again. It is easy to play a bowed note and then immediately a plucked note if the bowed note finished near the heel of the bow (the end where the bow is held). If the bowed note finishes near the tip the player needs a moment to get the hand ready to pluck. It can take a little more time to go back to bowing again because the player has to get the bow back into p