Pizzicato Pet Peeves

Pizzicato strings are one of film composer's favourite devices for anything comedy. Their use is so clichéd in comedy situations that it has become comedic in itself already.

Yet, we hear it every day in all sorts of "oh that's funny, clumsy or silly"-scenes on practically any media outlet with a particular peak in trashy reality TV.

Besides the fact that some composers default to this texture without thinking much about it, there are a few things to be mentioned about pizzicato that are really essential to know (besides not using them on every comedy cue).

One fact that I keep observing over and over again with composers who come from a sample background is that they radically overestimate the volume of pizzicato notes in real life. Just listening to their demos, you often hear pizzicato that is on equal volumes as the arco strings which is not the case in reality.

Even very strongly played pizzicatos (particularly on higher string instruments) don't project nearly as much as the same notes played arco on a waymore moderate dynamic. This has some important implications on orchestrational decisions, particularly when it comes to balancing.

In most cases, mixing pizzicato and arco in a string section that is supposed to provide for instance a balanced harmonic backdrop or something compareable is not the best idea. Imagine string chords where all sections play arco but the second violins play pizzicato (maybe to create some sort of pulse or to highlight attacks). In most cases of such a configuration, the string sections will not balance and the 2nd Violins will be lost more or less completely. So the most sensible decision is to have either all arco or all pizzicato.

The exception from this are the low strings, particularly Double Basses, whose pizzicato notes have enough power to carry the entire string section or even a tutti.

For instance, here's the climax of HYMN TO THE FALLEN by John Williams where the Double Basses carry an entire orchestra tutti+choir with pizzicato notes as can be clearly seen in the video linked above at around 4:21.

In such a case, the mix of pizzicato and arco makes sense from the orchestration standpoint.

However, as mentioned above, the higher string instrument pizzicati are way less carrying and only work in a rather exposed context.

There are a few more things to be mentioned here regarding pizzicato notes:

- They are very often challenging to record, the difference in micro timing and lack of concentration might cause a "messy" pizzicato where not all players play exactly at the same time. With arco playing such timing differences are way less obvious but just one player slightly early or late can cause the take to be useless. So don't expect this to be easy to record

- The switch between arco and pizzicato is very often not considered by composers. It is mostly impossible to have a pizzicato note right after an arco note. On the other hand, it might be possible to switch "seamlessly" from pizzicato to arco as the decay of the last pizzicato note can be used to prepare the bow. It just takes a short amount of time to switch (about a second or even less) but it is not completely instant which prevents to switch directly from arco to pizz.

- Many composers overestimate the agility of pizzicato notes. Most players play pizzicato notes with one finger and one pizzicato note requires twice the amount of movement than the same note arco as there is no "upbow pizzicato". Pizzicato only works in one direction other than bowing. So the finger always needs to be re-placed again before plucking every note which makes the maximum speed less than half as slow as what would be possible with the bow.

- On lower strings, the pizzicato notes have a considerable length. An unstopped pizz. on double basses might ring out for several seconds so it falls to the orchestrator to indicate whether a note should be left to ring out or dampened at a specific point. Usually, the player will dampen after the length of the written note.

- Another of my personal pet peeves is pizzicato notated with long notes like for instance whole notes in the violins as pizzicato notes. While this is from a notation standpoint relatively unproblematic, it can cause confusion in a scoring session situation where long notes might be mistaken for arco notes and you might get the question whether this is a mistake. So it is better to notate the lengths of how long these notes will most likely ring out.

- Pizzicato notes can be more than just comedy devices. They can also create a sense of busyness and mischief or even melancholy. Here's an example that uses pizzicatos in a non comedic way. Observe also the balance between the arco violin line and the rest of the string ensemble playing pizz. The arco violins play at very soft dynamics and still stand considerably above the pizz notes.

- Pizzicato works great in combination with woodwind chords. It is a very common device to double a woodwind chord with pizzicato strings which gives the chord a very distinctive attack and still creates some nice homogenity in the sound

So the bottom line is, don't use pizzicato mindlessly. It is not just a one trick pony and can be used very effectively. However, its projection power is quite limited in the higher instruments.