Snap pizzicato
Pluck so the string snaps back against the fingerboard
Related
Snap pizzicato is a violent pluck: the finger pulls the string away from the board and releases it so that it rebounds against the fingerboard with a short "snap". It is marked by a circle with a vertical stroke (or "Bartók pizz."), named after Bartók's heavy use of it in the string quartets.
The sound is mostly noise and impact; the pitch is still there but wrapped in the blow, its outline blurred, so the written note indicates where to strike rather than a clear melody note. The usual mistake is to treat it as "a harder pizzicato": ordinary pizzicato wants a full string tone, while snap pizzicato wants the string hitting the board; pull in the wrong direction and you get a loud pluck with no snap.
Sources
- snap pizzicato 的奏法与记谱，参 The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, "Pizzicato"；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.