How to Switch Between Pizzicato and Arco on Violin

Violin players use two fundamental right-hand techniques: pizzicato, where the string is plucked with a fingertip, and arco, where the bow is drawn across the string. Printed music switches between them with the abbreviations pizz. and arco, placed above the staff at the point where each mode begins. Once set, a mode stays active until the other mark cancels it — a barline, a rest, or a repeat sign does not change anything. Understanding that rule is the first step toward reading pizzicato and arco passages cleanly.

The second step is timing. Switching from plucking to bowing is not instantaneous: the bow has to move from its resting position back onto the string. If the score moves directly from a pizzicato note to an arco beat without a gap, that physical preparation has to happen during the note itself, which is awkward. Beginner scores are kinder — they print a rest between the last pizzicato note and the first arco note, giving the player a silent preparation window. This article explains both steps through a four-bar open-D study on the violin's second string, using verified notation, a beat-by-beat timeline, and a six-step practice routine.

1. What pizzicato and arco mean

The word pizzicato comes from Italian and means "plucked." In a standard violin score, the abbreviation pizz. appears above the treble staff at the moment plucking should begin. The technique for beginners is to hold the bow in the right hand in its normal position, then pluck the string with the right-hand index finger without putting the bow down. Advanced players also use left-hand pizzicato, and certain extended techniques (notably Bartók pizzicato, a snap pluck) appear in twentieth-century repertoire, but this article covers only standard right-hand pizzicato: the type marked pizz. in beginner notation.

The word arco means "bow" in Italian. In a score it cancels pizz. and signals that the bow should be drawn across the string from that point onward. No other information is implied: the same bow technique and bow arm position apply as before the pizzicato passage began. By convention, the word is written in full — arco rather than an abbreviation.

pizz. at the start of the bar tells you to pluck. The half rest that follows is two beats of silence — the mode stays pizzicato throughout.

arco cancels pizz. and signals a return to bowing. It persists until the next pizz. mark.

Both figures above use the open D string: D4, the second string from the lowest on a violin in standard tuning (G3, D4, A4, E5). Open strings require no left-hand fingers, which removes one variable from the exercise and lets you focus entirely on the right-hand action and mode awareness.

2. Both modes are persistent

The single most important rule about pizzicato and arco in printed music is that both marks are persistent. The standard reference Behind Bars by Elaine Gould (Faber Music, 2011) establishes this clearly for professional engravers: a pizz. mark stays in force until an arco mark cancels it, and an arco mark stays in force until a pizz. mark cancels it. No other notation event resets the mode.

This means a barline does not cancel pizzicato. If bar 1 is marked pizz. and bar 2 has no new mode mark, bar 2 is still pizzicato.

Bar 2 has no new mode mark. That means pizz. from bar 1 is still active — the barline changes nothing.

It also means a rest does not cancel pizzicato. If the bar contains a half note followed by a half rest and the mode is pizz., the rest is silent — but the mode is still pizzicato during and after it.

The arco mark at bar 2, beat 1 cancels the pizz. instruction from bar 1. Only a new mode mark can change the mode — nothing else.

The reverse rule is equally firm: arco persists until pizz. replaces it. Neither mode can be active at the same time as the other, and neither resets automatically.

The four mode rules. Only a new pizz. or arco mark can change the current mode — barlines, rests, and repeat signs do not.

When reading a passage, trace backward from the note in question to find the most recent pizz. or arco mark: that is the active mode at that note. If no such mark appears anywhere before the passage, consult your teacher — the editor may have assumed a default (usually arco) without printing it.

3. The open D string

All the examples in this article use a single pitch: D4, the open D string on a standard-tuned violin. Open strings are identified in standard tuning as G3, D4, A4, and E5 from the lowest to the highest. D4 corresponds to MIDI pitch 62 (concert pitch D above middle C), placing it in the lower part of the violin's range. Because it is an open string, no left-hand finger is needed to stop it — the string rings freely when plucked or bowed.

D4 — the open D string. No fingers are needed: the pitch is produced by the string alone.

The four violin strings in standard tuning. The open D string (D4, MIDI pitch 62) is highlighted. All examples in this article use only this string.

The decision to use only open D4 in a beginner exercise is deliberate. Eliminating the left-hand task means the student can direct all attention to the right hand: whether to pluck or bow, and when the mode changes. Once both techniques are secure on an open string, the same mode-reading skill transfers directly to stopped notes on any string. The technique of reading pizz. and arco marks does not change when the left hand is also working.

For rests and note values, the exercises use half notes and half rests throughout. Each half note lasts two quarter beats, and each half rest is also two quarter beats of silence — together they fill one complete bar in 4/4. A separate Tissimo worksheet on half notes and rests (The Half Note) covers the reading and counting of these values if you need to review them before working through the examples below. Background on tempo and the quarter-beat pulse is at Keeping Time: Tempo and the Metronome.

4. Finding the preparation window

A preparation window is a rest that appears in the score immediately before a mode change. It is silent: no note is sounding during the rest, which means no note is interrupted when the bow moves. The player uses the window to reposition the bow — or the plucking hand — without making a sound.

Half note: two beats of sound. Half rest: two beats of silence. In 4/4 together they fill one complete bar. Count both halves.

In the four-bar study, the preparation window is the half rest in bar 2: beats 3 and 4 of bar 2. The last pizzicato note (the bar 2 half note) ends on the second beat of bar 2. The half rest then follows for beats 3 and 4, after which arco begins at bar 3, beat 1. That two-beat window is the moment to move the bow.

The half rest in bar 2 (marked ★) is the preparation window. Move the bow into position here, silently, before arco begins at bar 3, beat 1.

The timeline below shows the full four bars divided by mode zone:

Where each mode is active across the four bars. The ★ is the preparation window: bar 2, beats 3 and 4. Arco does not become active until bar 3, beat 1.

Seeing the same information as individual beats makes the two-beat window more concrete:

Sixteen beats mapped into cells. Sounding cells are filled; rest cells (—) are silent. The ★ cells are the only silent window before arco begins.

The key implication of the window is physical: the bow must complete its repositioning inside the two ★ beats, not during the arco entry itself. If the bow is still moving when beat 1 of bar 3 arrives, the arco note enters late. The fix is always the same — slow the tempo until the window is large enough to use, and gradually increase once the habit is established.

5. The four-bar open-D study

The complete study has four bars at quarter = 60 (one quarter beat per second). Each bar contains one D4 half note followed by a half rest. Bars 1 and 2 are pizzicato; bars 3 and 4 are arco. The arco mark appears at bar 3, beat 1.

The complete four-bar open-D study. Bars 1–2: pizzicato. Bar 2 rest: prepare the bow. Bars 3–4: arco. All notes are open D4 — no left-hand fingers needed.

The three-bar path below isolates the mechanics of the change: bar 1 establishes pizzicato, bar 2 confirms it and provides the preparation window, and bar 3 opens the arco section.

Bar 1: pluck. Bar 2: pluck again, then use the half rest to prepare the bow. Bar 3: bow entry — the bow draws on beat 1.

For the arco entry to land on time, the bow should be resting on the D string at the start of bar 3 — not approaching it.

Beat 1 of bar 3: the bow should already be resting on the D string at this moment, not still moving into position.

The following six-step routine keeps each stage separate. Work through the steps in order at a slow tempo, then increase to quarter = 60 once each step is comfortable.

Six steps to a clean arco entry. Repeat from step 1 whenever the bow is not in place before bar 3, beat 1.

A reliable sign that the routine is working: during step 5, you should hear nothing — no string noise, no accidental bow contact — while the bow moves into position. A completely silent preparation means the bow reached the string before the ★ window closed, which is exactly the goal. It helps to count aloud or tap the beat while preparing, so that the silent movement happens during the counted beats 3–4, not after them.

6. Going further: an eight-bar route

Once the four-bar study is clean, the next stage is a second mode change: back to pizzicato after the arco section. The eight-bar route below follows the pattern pizz. (bars 1–2) → arco (bars 3–6) → pizz. (bars 7–8). There are now two preparation windows: the half rest in bar 2 (prepare arco) and the half rest in bar 6 (prepare pizzicato).

An eight-bar extension: two changes instead of one. There are now two preparation windows — bar 2 rest (prepare arco) and bar 6 rest (prepare pizz. again).

The preparation for the second change (bar 6 rest → pizzicato at bar 7, beat 1) uses the same logic as the first: the bow arm relaxes, the right-hand index finger moves to plucking position during the rest, and the plucked note lands on beat 1 of bar 7 on time. Because bars 3–5 establish the arco mode before bar 6 provides the window, students sometimes miss the second window — watch bar 6, beats 3–4 carefully. If it helps, mark both preparation windows in pencil on the score before playing.

Notice that bars 5 and 6 carry no new mode mark. They are still arco because the arco from bar 3 is still in force. The pizz. at bar 7 is the first mark that cancels it. This is the persistence rule from section 2 playing out across a longer span of music.

The Music Mark curriculum framework for strings (musicmark.org.uk) covers strings technique at the early stage; treating mode-marking awareness as a discrete preparatory step fits naturally into that sequence. The eight-bar route above gives that step a concrete home in the practice routine: two changes, two windows, one open string, no left-hand work.

7. Diagnosing errors

When something goes wrong in the study, three causes are most common: wrong mode (bowing when it should be pizzicato, or vice versa), wrong timing (the mode change is correct but the arco or pizzicato entry is late), and wrong note (playing a different string than intended). In this exercise the note is always open D4, so the third cause reduces to "wrong string." The first two are mode and timing errors, and they require different fixes.

The preparation zone — bar 2 and its rest. Wrong mode, late bow entry, or wrong string are independent faults — fix them one at a time.

Wrong mode means the player has lost track of which mark was most recently printed. The fix is to stop playing at the point of the error, look back in the score to the most recent pizz. or arco mark, and re-read the passage from that mark. Do not guess — trace backward. If no mark is visible in the current line, look at the end of the previous line.

Late timing means the mode is correct but the bow (or plucking finger) was not ready when beat 1 arrived. The fix is a slower tempo: slow down until the preparation window is wide enough to use comfortably, then confirm that beats are still being counted during the rest before gradually speeding up. A metronome or backing click makes late entries immediately audible because the click does not wait for the bow.

Wrong string means the right-hand action hit the wrong string. On open D4, this is most often the A string (A4, the adjacent string above) or the G string (G3, the adjacent string below). The fix is to stop and locate the D string visually before re-starting. String identification by feel takes time to develop; early in learning it is correct to look.

Check mode, note, timing, and sound separately. Most mistakes in this exercise belong to exactly one category.

Separating the three causes matters because treating a timing error as a mode error (or vice versa) will not fix the problem. Identify the category first by playing through one bar in isolation, noticing exactly what was wrong, and then applying the correct fix. Your teacher can listen to a short recording or a live run-through and confirm which category applies, which is often faster than self-diagnosis during practice.

For systematic work on reading mode marks before playing through notation, the exercise Which Action Is Active? (Exercise 156) presents pizz./arco sequences as a card-based inference drill: given a short event timeline, identify the active mode at a marked beat. The worksheet Pluck, Prepare, Bow (Handout 456) provides the four-bar open-D study in printed form with a timeline diagram and a plain-text edition.

The free worksheet for this lesson (Handout 456) is at tissimo.co/worksheets/violin-pizz-arco-state-line.

The technique of using a printed rest as a preparation window carries over to any instrument where a physical repositioning takes time. On violin it applies whenever a pizzicato passage is followed by an arco entry, and in the other direction whenever an arco passage is followed by pizzicato. Once the habit is set on a single open string at a slow tempo, it becomes available automatically in ensemble and concert playing — the window is already in the music, waiting to be used.

A Tissimo teacher can listen to your arco entry timing and bow placement in a live lesson and give direct feedback on whether the preparation is happening inside the window or after it. The The Rests worksheet covers silence as a structural element of music — every note value has a matching rest.