A plectrum is a small flat tool used for plucking or strumming of a
stringed instrument
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the st ...
. For hand-held instruments such as
guitar
The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...
s and
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
s, the plectrum is often called a
pick and is held as a separate tool in the player's hand. In
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
s, the plectra are attached to the jack mechanism.
Plectra wielded by hand
Guitars and similar instruments
![17 Assorted Guitar Picks](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/61/17_Assorted_Guitar_Picks.jpg)
A plectrum for
electric guitar
An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...
s,
acoustic guitar
An acoustic guitar is a musical instrument in the string family. When a string is plucked its vibration is transmitted from the bridge, resonating throughout the top of the guitar. It is also transmitted to the side and back of the instrument, ...
s,
bass guitar
The bass guitar, electric bass or simply bass (), is the lowest-pitched member of the string family. It is a plucked string instrument similar in appearance and construction to an electric or an acoustic guitar, but with a longer neck and ...
s and
mandolin
A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...
s is typically a thin piece of plastic or other material most commonly shaped like a pointed teardrop or triangle, though the size, gauge, shape and width may vary considerably. Banjo and guitar players may wear a metal or plastic thumb pick mounted on a ring, and bluegrass banjo players often wear metal or plastic
fingerpick
A fingerpick is a type of plectrum used most commonly for playing bluegrass style banjo music. Most fingerpicks are composed of metal or plastic (usually Celluloid or Delrin). Unlike flat guitar picks, which are held between the thumb and fin ...
s on their fingertips. Many guitarists use fingerpicks as well.
Guitar picks are made of a variety of materials, including
celluloid
Celluloids are a class of materials produced by mixing nitrocellulose and camphor, often with added dyes and other agents. Once much more common for its use as photographic film before the advent of safer methods, celluloid's common contemporary ...
, metal, and rarely other exotic materials such as turtle shell, but today
delrin
Polyoxymethylene (POM), also known as acetal, polyacetal, and polyformaldehyde, is an engineering thermoplastic used in precision parts requiring high stiffness, low friction, and excellent dimensional stability. As with many other synthetic pol ...
(a synthetic
thermoplastic
A thermoplastic, or thermosoft plastic, is any plastic polymer material that becomes pliable or moldable at a certain elevated temperature and solidifies upon cooling.
Most thermoplastics have a high molecular weight. The polymer chains associate ...
polymer) is the most common. For other instruments in the modern day, most players use plastic plectra but a variety of other materials, including wood and
felt
Felt is a textile material that is produced by matting, condensing and pressing fibers together. Felt can be made of natural fibers such as wool or animal fur, or from synthetic fibers such as petroleum-based acrylic or acrylonitrile or wood ...
(for use with the
ukulele
The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings.
The tone and volume of the instrumen ...
) are common. Guitarists in the
rock
Rock most often refers to:
* Rock (geology), a naturally occurring solid aggregate of minerals or mineraloids
* Rock music, a genre of popular music
Rock or Rocks may also refer to:
Places United Kingdom
* Rock, Caerphilly, a location in Wales ...
,
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
and
bluegrass genres tend to use a plectrum, partly due to the use of steel strings wearing out the player's fingernails quickly, but also because a plectrum provides a more "clear", "focused" and "aggressive" sound. Many guitarists will also use the pick in combination the remaining picking-hand fingers simultaneously, to combine the different advantages of flat-picking and
finger picking. This technique is called ''
hybrid picking
Hybrid picking is a guitar-playing technique that involves picking with a pick (plectrum) and one or more fingers alternately or simultaneously. Hybrid picking allows guitar players who use a pick to perform music which would normally require ...
'', or more colloquially in country & bluegrass genres, as chicken pickin'.
A plectrum of the guitar type is often called a pick (or a ''flatpick'' to distinguish it from fingerpicks).
Non-Western instruments
The plectra for the
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
ese
biwa and
shamisen can be quite large, and those used for the Arabic
oud
, image=File:oud2.jpg
, image_capt=Syrian oud made by Abdo Nahat in 1921
, background=
, classification=
* String instruments
*Necked bowl lutes
, hornbostel_sachs=321.321-6
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded with a plectrum
, ...
are longer and narrower, replacing the formerly used eagle feather. Plectra used for Chinese instruments such as the
sanxian
The (, literally "three strings") is a three-stringed traditional Chinese lute. It has a long fretless fingerboard, and the body is traditionally made from snake skin stretched over a rounded rectangular resonator. It is made in several sizes ...
were formerly made of animal horn, though many players today use plastic plectra.
Plectra from around the world
File:Sarod plectrum.jpg, A traditional hand crafted coconut
The coconut tree (''Cocos nucifera'') is a member of the palm tree family ( Arecaceae) and the only living species of the genus ''Cocos''. The term "coconut" (or the archaic "cocoanut") can refer to the whole coconut palm, the seed, or the ...
shell sarod plectrum, also known as a Javva
File:Alkaios Sappho Staatliche Antikensammlungen 2416 n1.jpg, Alcaeus and Sappho holding their lyre
The lyre () is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute-family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke ...
s and plectra. Attic red-figure calathus, ca. 470 BC, Staatliche Antikensammlungen (Inv. 2416)
Image:Bachi compare.JPG, Bachi, or plectra for use with shamisen
Image:Biwa plectra.jpg, Biwa plectra
Image:Holding the risha pos 1.jpg, Risha for Oud
, image=File:oud2.jpg
, image_capt=Syrian oud made by Abdo Nahat in 1921
, background=
, classification=
* String instruments
*Necked bowl lutes
, hornbostel_sachs=321.321-6
, hornbostel_sachs_desc=Composite chordophone sounded with a plectrum
, ...
Plectra in harpsichords
![Harpsichord jack](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/37/Harpsichord_jack.svg)
In a
harpsichord
A harpsichord ( it, clavicembalo; french: clavecin; german: Cembalo; es, clavecín; pt, cravo; nl, klavecimbel; pl, klawesyn) is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. This activates a row of levers that turn a trigger mechanism ...
, there is a separate plectrum for each string. These plectra are very small, often only about 10 millimeters long, about 1.5 millimeters wide, and half a millimeter thick. The plectrum is gently tapered, being narrowest at the plucking end. The top surface of the plectrum is flat and horizontal and is held in the tongue of the jack; the tongue is pivoted so that the plectrum plucks the string when moving up, but is pushed away when moving down.
In the historical period of harpsichord construction (up to about 1800) plectra were made of sturdy feather quills, usually from
crow
A crow is a bird of the genus '' Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifica ...
s or
ravens. In Italy, some makers (including
Bartolomeo Cristofori
Bartolomeo Cristofori di Francesco (; May 4, 1655 – January 27, 1731) was an Italian maker of musical instruments famous for inventing the piano.
Life
The available source materials on Cristofori's life include his birth and death recor ...
) used
vulture
A vulture is a bird of prey that scavenges on carrion. There are 23 extant species of vulture (including Condors). Old World vultures include 16 living species native to Europe, Africa, and Asia; New World vultures are restricted to North and ...
quills. Other Italian harpsichords employed plectra of
leather
Leather is a strong, flexible and durable material obtained from the tanning, or chemical treatment, of animal skins and hides to prevent decay. The most common leathers come from cattle, sheep, goats, equine animals, buffalo, pigs and hogs, ...
.
[Hubbard 1967] In late French harpsichords by the great builder
Pascal Taskin, ''peau de buffle'', a
chamois
The chamois (''Rupicapra rupicapra'') or Alpine chamois is a species of goat-antelope native to mountains in Europe, from west to east, including the Alps, the Dinarides, the Tatra and the Carpathian Mountains, the Balkan Mountains, the Ril ...
-like material from the hide of the
European bison
The European bison (''Bison bonasus'') or the European wood bison, also known as the wisent ( or ), the zubr (), or sometimes colloquially as the European buffalo, is a European species of bison. It is one of two extant species of bison, along ...
, was used for plectra to produce a delicate
pianissimo
In music, the dynamics of a piece is the variation in loudness between notes or phrases. Dynamics are indicated by specific musical notation, often in some detail. However, dynamics markings still require interpretation by the performer dependin ...
.
Modern harpsichords frequently employ plectra made with plastic, specifically the plastic known as
acetal
In organic chemistry, an acetal is a functional group with the connectivity . Here, the R groups can be organic fragments (a carbon atom, with arbitrary other atoms attached to that) or hydrogen, while the R' groups must be organic fragments n ...
. Some plectra are of the
homopolymer
A polymer (; Greek '' poly-'', "many" + '' -mer'', "part")
is a substance or material consisting of very large molecules called macromolecules, composed of many repeating subunits. Due to their broad spectrum of properties, both synthetic an ...
variety of acetal, sold by
DuPont
DuPont de Nemours, Inc., commonly shortened to DuPont, is an American multinational chemical company first formed in 1802 by French-American chemist and industrialist Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours. The company played a major role in ...
under the name "Delrin", while others are of the
copolymer
In polymer chemistry, a copolymer is a polymer derived from more than one species of monomer. The polymerization of monomers into copolymers is called copolymerization. Copolymers obtained from the copolymerization of two monomer species are some ...
variety, sold by
Ticona
Celanese Corporation, formerly known as Hoechst Celanese, is an American technology and specialty materials company headquartered in Irving, Texas. A Fortune 500 corporation, the company is the world’s leading producer of acetic acid, produc ...
as "Celcon". Harpsichord technicians and builders generally use the trade names to refer to these materials. In either of its varieties, acetal is far more durable than quill, which cuts down substantially on the time that must be spent in voicing (see below).
Several contemporary builders and players have reasserted the superiority of bird quill for high-level harpsichords. While the difference in sound between acetal and quill is acknowledged to be small, what difference may exist is held to be to the advantage of quill. In addition, quill plectra tend to fail gradually, giving warning by the diminishing volume, whereas acetal plectra fail suddenly and completely, sometimes in the middle of a performance.
Voicing harpsichord plectra
The plectra of a harpsichord must be cut precisely, in a process called "voicing". A properly voiced plectrum will pluck the string in a way that produces a good musical tone and matches well in loudness with all of the other strings. The underside of the plectrum must be appropriately slanted and entirely smooth, so that the jack will not "hang" (get caught on the string) when, after sounding a note, it is moved back down below the level of the string.
Normally, voicing is carried out by inserting the plectrum into the jack, then placing the jack on a small wooden voicing block, so that the top of the plectrum sits flush with the block. The plectrum is then cut and thinned on the underside with a small, very sharp knife, such as an
X-Acto knife. As the plectrum is progressively trimmed, its jack is replaced in the instrument at intervals to test the result for loudness, tone quality, and the possibility of hanging.
Voicing is a refined skill, carried out fluently by professional builders, but one that usually must also be learned (at least to some degree) by harpsichord owners.
Etymology and usage
First attested in English 15th century, the word "plectrum" comes from
Latin
Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...
''plectrum'', itself derived from
Greek
Greek may refer to:
Greece
Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe:
*Greeks, an ethnic group.
*Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family.
**Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...
πλῆκτρον (''plēktron''), "anything to strike with, an instrument for striking the lyre, a spear point".
"Plectrum" has both a Latin-based plural, ''plectra'' and a native English plural, ''plectrums''. ''Plectra'' is used in formal writing, particularly in discussing the harpsichord as an instrument of classical music,
while ''plectrums'' is more common in ordinary speech.
See also
*
Crosspicking Crosspicking is a technique for playing the mandolin or guitar using a plectrum or flatpick in a rolling, syncopated style across three strings. This style is probably best known as one element of the flatpicking style in bluegrass music, and it clo ...
*
Fingerpick
A fingerpick is a type of plectrum used most commonly for playing bluegrass style banjo music. Most fingerpicks are composed of metal or plastic (usually Celluloid or Delrin). Unlike flat guitar picks, which are held between the thumb and fin ...
*
Flatpicking
Flatpicking (or simply picking) is the technique of striking the strings of a guitar with a pick (also called a plectrum) held between the thumb and one or two fingers. It can be contrasted to fingerstyle guitar, which is playing with indi ...
*
Guitar pick
*
Hybrid picking
Hybrid picking is a guitar-playing technique that involves picking with a pick (plectrum) and one or more fingers alternately or simultaneously. Hybrid picking allows guitar players who use a pick to perform music which would normally require ...
*
Mezrab (plectrum)
A mezrāb or mizrab (, , hi, मिज़राब), also known as a zakhmeh or (, also spelled as ''zakhma'') is a plectrum which is used for several Iranian and Indian string instruments.
For sitar, a mezrab is worn on the finger of a sit ...
*
String instrument
String instruments, stringed instruments, or chordophones are musical instruments that produce sound from vibrating strings when a performer plays or sounds the strings in some manner.
Musicians play some string instruments by plucking the ...
Notes
References
*Hubbard, Frank (1967) ''Three Centuries of Harpsichord Making''. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
*Jensen, David P. (1998) "A Florentine Harpsichord: Revealing a Transitional Technology" ''Early Music'', February issue, pp. 71–85.
*Kottick, Edward L. (1987) ''The Harpsichord Owner's Guide''. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press.
External links
*The discovery of delrin as a harpsichord plectrum material; a collaboration between builders and technologists. ''Harpsichord'', vol 4, no. 2 (1971), pp. 18–19. On line a
{{Guitar picking
String instrument construction
Harpsichord