What I Teach: What's Pizz got to do with it?

At some point you've probably thought about how you put your fingers on the string and take them off.

But have you spent much time considering why exactly you do it that way? Well, I started looking into this and observed that when we did left hand pizzicato, we pulled our fingers off the string, rather than simply lifting them up as we normally do.

This got me thinking.

If there was a lot of left hand pizzicato in your repertoire, wouldn't it make sense to keep that pulling angle all the time? So I got curious about when left hand pizzicato first became a significant part of violin technique.

Did some research, and all roads led to Niccolo Paganini.

He frequently alternated using left hand pizzicato in bowing, creating incredible effects that demanded extraordinary dexterity and flexibility.

Thanks to Paganini, left hand pizzicato became an essential part of a violinist's toolkit, instead of just a passing curiosity.

But Paganini didn't actually invent left hand pizzicato. He learned and popularized it after being inspired by the violinist August Duranowski, who was renowned for his innovative use of harmonics and left hand pizzicato.

Paganini was so impressed by his technique and showmanship that he incorporated and expanded Duranowski's ideas in his own performances and compositions.

After considering all this, it became clear to me that Paganini probably took his fingers off the string this way quite often.

And if that angle works so well for taking the finger off, it would make sense to use a similar angle when putting the finger on the string.

This led me to wonder if using this left hand pizzicato angle might create other positives.

For example, doing it this way involves your hand, your forearm, and your elbow. In fact, it involves your entire left side. You end up sharing the workload across these muscle groups, and this is definitely a positive.

And then there is speed, as you can roll your fingers to the string using those same shared muscle groups. And if you manage the force you use to pull the finger off the string when bowing, you end up expanding your left hand articulation possibilities.

Expressivity looms large.

So after all this exploring, I asked myself the following question.

If left hand pizzicato shows you how to pull and place the finger, when should you teach it? Well, in Professor Fitzpatrick's Melodies books, there were two melodies dedicated to left hand pizzicato, numbers 2 and 10.

These melodies are destined for children 69 years old, so it's quite amazing to see children of this age doing left hand pizzicato.

All right then. At the end of the day, we should really thank Mr. Paganini for showing us the light.

Automatic video-to-text transcription by DaDaScribe.com

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