Pizzicato is a playing technique that involves plucking the strings of a string instrument. The exact technique varies somewhat depending on the type of instrument:On bowed string instruments it is a method of playing by plucking the strings with the fingers, rather than using the bow. This produces a very different sound from bowing, short and percussive rather than sustained.
On keyboard string instruments, such as the piano, pizzicato may be employed as one of the variety of techniques involving direct manipulation of the strings known collectively as "string piano".
On the guitar, it is a muted form of plucking, which bears an audible resemblance to pizzicato on a bowed string instrument with its relatively shorter sustain. It is also known as palm muting.
Jazz bass walking bass lines are traditionally played with pizzicato. Jazz pizzicato technique, shown above, is different from traditional pizzicato technique.
In musical instrument classification, string instruments or chordophones, are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
Bow Harp or Harp Lute, West Africa
Hellenistic banquet scene from the 1st century AD, Hadda, Gandhara. Lute player far right.
Spanish stele of a boy with a pandura.
Viol, fidel and rebec (from left to right) on display at Amakusa Korejiyokan in Amakusa, Kumamoto, Japan
