What do you do instead of pizzicato?

[sbhikes]

So in an old-time tune that has pizzicato, what should a melody-playing mandolinist do?

[mrmando]

use a bow?

[Beanzy]

You can palm mute with the heel of the right hand, while damping the left hand by taking the pressure off the left hand fingers, that can give the rounder pizz sound to equate with the violin tone.

If it’s a mandoling pizz written in then it can often be left hand pizzicato.

Some rh pizziczto can be done with the 3rd or pinky of the right hand if that saves moving the pick in your grip. However thatbonly works for me on the A and E courses as I sometimes catch the back of the nail doing that which is a distraction, so also I use the rh thumb on the G or D courses, but I have to poke it out to do that without catching the pick.

[sbhikes]

Oh, so you actually do pizzicato like a violinist? Okay. I don't know these things so I thought I would ask.

[Bertram Henze]

Don't we do pickicato all the time?

[Beanzy]

They got a bow we got a pick, the rest is up for grabs.

[Tom Wright]

One can mute for a very short tone decay to emulate pizzicato. The violin has no frets so plucked notes usually don't ring. The same effect can be had by muting with either right or left hand. If you practice using the left hand fingers you have freedom to pick normally.

I do left hand muting by fingering right on top of the fret and barely pressing.

Tone depends a lot on precisely where your finger is relative to the fret. Although it is more reliable to land almost on top of the fret, a longer sustain and brighter tone is had by leaning away from the fret to avoid any flesh touching the vibrating portion of the string. Conversely, a darker or warmer tone can be made by fingering more on top of the fret so that a little flesh is actually still touching the vibrating string.

[sbhikes]

Is this muting thing traditional? For example, in an old-time tune that has pizzicato in it, what would someone like Kenny Hall have done?

[Beanzy]

"It was about 1937 when I was first tryin' to figure out how to play the mandolin. Since it was tuned like a fiddle I figured I should hold it that way, you know, under the chin. I was pluckin' it with my fingernail, which of course I still use, but I was only going one way. And Mr. Sanford says, 'No, you can't do it that way.' So we'd take tunes like "Apricot Stealer's Waltz" and "Tommy Don't Go" that I'd already learned on the fiddle, and we'd do jiggles on the notes, y'know, go back and forth instead of just pluckin' the notes. And I started catchin' on that I could do it that way. I started puttin' that mandolin on my knee where it would stay put, y'know. And then I could jiggle the notes good without the mandolin wriggling." - Kenny Hall http://www.oldtimeherald.org/archive...enny-hall.html

He never used a pick.and used to do all sorts of roll type stuff a bit like a banjo player might, only with the instrument held nearly vertically, so the tips of the fingers were in use a lot.

[Martin Jonas]

One easy apporach would be to play a pizzicato phrase in a fiddle tune "sul tasto", i.e. picking above the fretboard, around the 12th to 15th fret. That creates a very soft delicate tone, somewhat similar to the contrast between a plucked and a bowed fiddle string.

There's no point in getting hung up about the "pizzicato" part of it: the mechanics of playing mandolin and violin are sufficiently different that there is no direct equivalent and we are free to choose whatever musical effect we like to replace it.

Martin

[Tom Wright]

I would respectfully disagree re picking on the fingerboard, a nice tone I use a lot. The point of pizzicato for violin is the strong attack and no sustain, making for a xylophone sound. I speak from 60+ years of experience on violin and viola, and 35 years as a well-paid professional violist.

Mandolin can sustain, and of course we use tremolo for longer sustain. To get the opposite effect you should try for a strong attack and almost zero sustain. Guitarists do this a lot, and they use both bridge damping and left hand. The bridge-damping sound was popular in early days of British invasion pop, think Herman's Hermits, when they were trying to emulate plectrum banjo. It was popular enough that at least one top-line Fender guitar, the Jaguar, had a foam-rubber mute right at the bridge that could be levered upward to stop the strings from ringing.

Al Dimeola often uses left-hand damping for the "pizzicato" tone, moving into and out of it during a riff. He does this on both electric and acoustic.

So I would say whatever you can do to stop the string from ringing is the effect wanted for a pizzicato marking. Picking sul tasto, on the fingerboard, would be appropriate for markings like sotto voce or lontano, or just as a way to play very quietly. It also enhances sustain at the expense of attack, another useful technique.

[jesserules]

Is this muting thing traditional? For example, in an old-time tune that has pizzicato in it, what would someone like Kenny Hall have done?

Pizzicato is a technique that is specific to bowed instruments. You are apparently playing from violin sheet music. Okay, but you should remember that you are playing a mandolin, you are not trying to imitate a violin.

Not that many old time tunes have a pizzicato section. If you do encounter one that does, and you want to play it, you are completely free to decide how - if at all - to render the pizzicato on a mandolin. There absolutely is not any prescribed technique for doing that.

[allenhopkins]

...Not that many old time tunes have a pizzicato section. If you do encounter one that does, and you want to play it, you are completely free to decide how - if at all - to render the pizzicato on a mandolin...

Here's one: Lost Child by the Stripling Brothers:

[mandocrucian]

Right hand palm mute is all you need.

[sbhikes]

Pizzicato is a technique that is specific to bowed instruments. You are apparently playing from violin sheet music. Okay, but you should remember that you are playing a mandolin, you are not trying to imitate a violin.

Not that many old time tunes have a pizzicato section. If you do encounter one that does, and you want to play it, you are completely free to decide how - if at all - to render the pizzicato on a mandolin. There absolutely is not any prescribed technique for doing that.

Ha ha ha I'm not playing from sheet music. I'm trying for this tune. I'm sure the fiddlers have a lot of fun playing the third part, but I'm not sure what I should be doing, that's why I'm asking. I've just been picking the string and trying to make it ping, but that got me to wondering what is proper, old-time musically, if there's such a thing.

[Tom Wright]

That particular one is easy--hold the low 2nd fret A on the G string, pick it on the beat and pick the open E off the beat. That pizz is not short, because they're using open E. You'll get a good effect by jumping the pick from G to E string. Or you can use left hand pizzicato on the E to show off.

Another show-off move would be tremolo the low A while left hand does pizz on the E.

[sbhikes]

Cool, thank you.

[jesserules]

what is proper, old-time musically, if there's such a thing.

Oh, well, that's easy. There isn't such a thing.

If you want to make some sort of pizzicatoesque sound while playing mandolin, feel free to do so in any way that strikes your fancy.

[Bertram Henze]

I'm sure the fiddlers have a lot of fun playing the third part, but I'm not sure what I should be doing, that's why I'm asking. I've just been picking the string and trying to make it ping, but that got me to wondering what is proper, old-time musically, if there's such a thing.

Hey, they're cheating! They pick with the left hand? That's not pizzicato, that's plinking. As a mandolinist, I'd just do a pull-off.

[sbhikes]

Apparently I don't even know what pizzacato is. Whatever it is, it's cool. There are a few tunes we do that have this and I just sit out that part usually. I suggested to my jam-mates that we learn this tune but then I realized I won't be able to properly do the pizza-not-acato (pizza-avocado?). I'm not sure I can rely on them to learn the tune and help me convey what the fiddles should be doing in that third part. In fact, after some round and round arguing about whether there are three distinct parts or just one and a half, it's not even clear to me they will be willing to learn it at all. This tune will probably end up in my giant pile of really great tunes we'll never play because it was just little old me who brought it up.

[Bertram Henze]

This is pizzicato.

[T.D.Nydn]

I would respectfully disagree re picking on the fingerboard, a nice tone I use a lot. The point of pizzicato for violin is the strong attack and no sustain, making for a xylophone sound. I speak from 60+ years of experience on violin and viola, and 35 years as a well-paid professional violist.

Mandolin can sustain, and of course we use tremolo for longer sustain. To get the opposite effect you should try for a strong attack and almost zero sustain. Guitarists do this a lot, and they use both bridge damping and left hand. The bridge-damping sound was popular in early days of British invasion pop, think Herman's Hermits, when they were trying to emulate plectrum banjo. It was popular enough that at least one top-line Fender guitar, the Jaguar, had a foam-rubber mute right at the bridge that could be levered upward to stop the strings from ringing.

Al Dimeola often uses left-hand damping for the "pizzicato" tone, moving into and out of it during a riff. He does this on both electric and acoustic.

So I would say whatever you can do to stop the string from ringing is the effect wanted for a pizzicato marking. Picking sul tasto, on the fingerboard, would be appropriate for markings like sotto voce or lontano, or just as a way to play very quietly. It also enhances sustain at the expense of attack, another useful technique.

The Al Dimeola mute..I would say this is exactly the kind of sound you would want....

[Jim Garber]

Tricia Spencer and Howard Rains play lots of old time Texas fiddle tunes. In general, they are often in open tunings like AEAE or AEAC#. I don't think that many fiddlers pluck the strings using the classical method. I am not sure why except that they want the sound of an open string and need to get back to the bow soon after that.

Actually, in mandolin-land, a similar technique is used in classical duo-style where one or more sets of strings would be played tremolo and some open strings would be plucked with the left hand.

[sbhikes]

Spencer and Rains are all the rage in my jam. I actually played with them at a camping trip a few months ago, but at the time I didn't know who they were. They play a lot of tunes that involve a lot of shuffling, not a lot of notes.

[Rob Ross]

OK, so I knew this would happen. It's past bedtime, I got to get up early to take my son to the airport in the morning. "I'll just look at a few forum posts . . . ok, read that one . . . naw, not interesting . . . Oh, wait, as a fiddler I'm actually curious how you one could approximate pizzicato, always wondered how to pull that off on mando for the 'The Hen's March Through The Midden/The Four Poster Bed' set . . . hmm, that's interesting . . . hmmmm, Spencer and Rains, never heard of them, I'll just take a little listen . . . oh my . . . OH MY!"

So now I have to look up way more stuff about Spencer and Rains AND I have to learn "Rabbit Hash" and I had danged well get to bed NOW before I listen to that wonderful 8 minute video again.

Thanks guys, ANOTHER late evening shot to heck on the Mandolin Cafe Forums.