Playing Pizzicato on the Cello

My name is Diana Flesner and we are here at the International School of Music in Bethesda, Maryland. In this clip, we will be covering pizzicato and some of the note basics in the left hand.

So, pizzicato or plucking up a string is an excellent way to begin and also train the left hand before attempting to use the bow. So, when pluck the string, you basically want to be about three or four inches from the end of the fingerboard. The objective is to get a resonant sound and you catch the string and then release it.

Generally, pizzicato is done with this first finger of the right hand. So, when you are going to do pizzicato, you can start with just open strings, working either from the top down or a bottom up and mix them up just to gain facility and knowing where each of the strings are even without looking.

So, in going to the left hand you can start, again as a review, each of the finger is numbered starting with the first finger then the second finger, the third finger and the fourth finger and on cello, each of these fingers are a half step apart. When putting them down, you will sometimes skip over a finger due to do the distances on the cello, but let us start by covering some of the notes in pitch. We will start with the lowest note and basically, which is the open C string, as you put a finger down the note or the pitch gets higher. So, we are going to start at the very bottom and go through to the top C. So, we have C, D, E, F, G, A, E, C, D, E, F, G, A, E, C.

So, if you noticed basically, there are seven letters in the musical alphabet and they repeat over and over from A through G and then again it starts again with A. So, in reverse, if you are coming down the notes of the alphabet will go backwards. So, C, D, A, G, F, E, D, C, etcetera and other notes, I will go into review a little bit more latter but basically, third finger notes that are common in the first book, you will be covering mostly notes on the D string and A string and then later adding the C and G. So, an important one to learn is F Sharp, which is third finger and we will cover that in a song that we learn later and third finger on the A string is C Sharp versus second finger which is C Natural. So, when you are getting started, something that might be helpful for beginners is to use masking tape or electrical tape and just cut a small strip of it and put it where each of the notes should be.

So, again you can use as a tuner or a piano to help you figure this out and just put a thin strip across there that first note would be on the D string, first finger on the D string would be E, the next, you could either leave off the second finger tape or then go to third finger which is F Sharp and then fourth finger is G.

So, that tape will help you in the beginning to know where to put your fingers until your ear is trained pitch wise. Eventually, you want to eliminate the tape on the string and just do it by your ear. So, that s it for this clip. In the next one, we will be covering how to learn one song, a basic song Lightly Row.