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Right hand and tone color

The strings may be sounded by drawing the hair of the bow held by the right hand across them (arco) or by plucking them (pizzicato) most often with the right hand. In some cases, the violinist will pluck strings with the left hand. This is done to facilitate transitions from pizzicato to arco playing. It is also used in some virtuoso showpieces. Left hand pizzicato is usually done on open strings. Pizzicato is used on all of the violin family instruments; however, the systematic study of advanced pizzicato techniques is most developed in jazz bass, a style in which the instrument is almost exclusively plucked.

The right arm, hand, and bow and the bow speed are responsible for tone quality, rhythm, dynamics, articulation, and most (but not all) changes in timbre. The player draws the bow over the string, causing the string to vibrate and produce a sustained tone. The bow is a wooden stick with tensioned horsetail hair, which has been rosined with a bar of rosin. The natural texture of the horsehair and the stickiness of the rosin help the bow to "grip" the string, and thus when the bow is drawn over the string, the bow causes the string to sound a pitch.

Bowing can be used to produce long sustained notes or melodies. With a string section, if the players in a section change their bows at different times, a note can seem to be endlessly sustainable. As well, the bow can be used to play short, crisp little notes, such as repeated notes, scales and arpeggios, which provide a propulsive rhythm in many styles of music.