How to Play a Violin With Fingers

Playing a violin with your fingers instead of a bow involves a technique called pizzicato. With pizzicato, you use your right forefinger to gently pluck strings during specifically marked sections of your music or throughout an entire musical composition. In sheet music, pizzicato notation is "pizz." Through large sections of music where you continue pizzicato, the abbreviation will appear before the note in that section. Look for "arco," which indicates the end of a pizzicato section to resume bowing.

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

Instructions

1. Place your sheet music on your music stand. Look for any pizzicato notations throughout the piece. You will pluck the string instead of drawing your bow across the strings for marked notes. Once you have committed the song to your memory, you can skip this step.

2. Hold your violin in place with your left hand on the neck of your instrument. Place your left hand fingers on the note you wish to play.

3. Use your right hand forefinger to pluck the string, gently to raise it upward. Immediately release the string; it should bounce back into place. You should hear an audio ping in the pitch of the note that corresponds with your finger placement.

Tips & Warnings

• When practicing or performing pizzicato, do not pry at the string. The resulting sound from your plucking will be carried through the soundboard of your violin, which allows even the gentlest of pings to be heard. If you pluck a string too hard, it may become loose due to force, causing it to snap on impact. This could result in personal injury to your face.

References

• Violin Pizzicato
• Violin Technique and Performance Practice in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries by Robin Stowell (pages 222 -- 223)