Meaning & use
arco
Last updated
Meaning
adverbnot comparablemusic
A direction in sheet music telling a player of a violin, cello or double bass to use the bow after a passage played by plucking.
Grammar: Appears as a written instruction, often after pizzicato: play arco.
Patterns
- play arco
- go back to arco
The score marks arco at bar 32, so the cellists pick up their bows.
After the plucked section, the bassist returns to arco.
The composer wrote arco above the long, singing line.
Common combinations
- play arco
- Please play arco from the second beat of bar nine.
- return to arco
- The violas return to arco after sixteen bars of plucking.
- pizzicato to arco
- The change from pizzicato to arco gives the music a warmer sound.
- arco passage
- The arco passage in the slow movement is very expressive.
- marked arco
- The line was marked arco, so I put my pencil down and lifted the bow.
Synonyms and how they differ
- col arco
- Col arco is an equivalent Italian instruction meaning with the bow, and it is slightly less common in modern scores.
- coll'arco
- Coll'arco is an older spelling of col arco, and it appears in editions of classical scores.
- with the bow
- With the bow is the plain English instruction used in teaching, but printed scores nearly always say arco.
Opposites
Word family
Commonly confused: arco or pizzicato?
arco vs pizzicato
Pizzicato is the opposite instruction, telling a string player to pluck the strings with the fingers instead of using the bow.
Practice
After a long section marked pizzicato, the score says 'arco'. What should the cellist do?
Choose one answer.
Arco cancels pizzicato and tells string players to use the bow again. It does not mean silence, plucking or a change in volume.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “arco”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.