An arpeggio is a chord whose notes are played one at a time, in sequence, rather than struck together. The word comes from the Italian arpeggiare, meaning to play like a harp. It is the same notes as the chord, just spread out in time. Play C, E, and G all at once and you have a C major chord; play the same three notes one after another and you have a C major arpeggio. Here is how an arpeggio differs from a chord and a scale, how it is written, where you hear it, and how to play one.
Arpeggio vs chord vs scale
A chord is notes sounded together; an arpeggio is those same chord notes sounded one at a time; a scale is the stepwise notes of a key. That is the whole distinction in one line. A C major chord stacks C, E, and G into a single moment. A C major arpeggio uses exactly those pitches but lays them out in time, C then E then G, so you hear the chord unfold instead of all at once. A scale is a different animal: it moves by adjacent steps through a key, C D E F G A B, touching every note in order. An arpeggio skips, because it follows only the chord tones and leaves out the notes in between. It helps to think of chords and arpeggios as two views of the same harmony, while a scale is the full ladder of the key underneath. If you want the chord side of that picture in more depth, see chord inversions, and for the scale side, what is a scale in music.
How arpeggios are written
An arpeggio is notated one of two ways: as individual notes written out in sequence, or as a stacked chord with a wavy vertical line beside it that means roll it. The written-out form is the common one. You simply see the chord tones as separate noteheads in a row, each with its own rhythmic value, and you play them in that order. The wavy-line form is a shorthand: the composer writes the notes as an ordinary block chord, then draws a squiggle up the left side to tell you not to strike them together but to spread them quickly from the bottom up. Either way, an arpeggio has a direction. An ascending arpeggio climbs from the lowest chord tone to the highest; a descending arpeggio falls from the top down. Reading these on the staff is just reading notes in order, and if that part is still new, how to read sheet music covers the basics.
Broken chords and where you hear arpeggios
A broken chord is a near-synonym for an arpeggio in common use, with one subtle distinction: a broken chord can repeat or reorder its notes in a set pattern, while an arpeggio typically runs straight through the chord tones in order. If you play C, G, E, G over and over as an accompaniment figure, that is a broken chord; if you run cleanly up C, E, G and keep climbing, that is an arpeggio in the strict sense. Most musicians use the words interchangeably, and the difference rarely matters in conversation. What matters is that once you know the sound, you hear it everywhere. The opening of Beethoven's Fur Elise is built on it, and the famous left hand of the Moonlight Sonata is a steady stream of broken-chord arpeggios under the melody. Pop-piano accompaniment leans on the same device, rolling through each chord instead of blocking it, and guitar fingerpicking is arpeggiation by another name: the fingers pluck the strings of a held chord one at a time. The underlying harmony is just a chord progression played this way, which is the subject of chord progressions.
How to play an arpeggio
To play an arpeggio, pick a chord and play its notes one at a time, low to high or high to low, evenly spaced. Start with the chord under your hand: for C major, that is C, E, and G. Then, instead of pressing all three together, sound them in turn, keeping the timing even so the line flows rather than lurches. Once the ascending shape is comfortable, reverse it and come back down, then try running up and down without a break. The single best practice tip is to know the chord first. An arpeggio is only as solid as your grasp of the chord underneath it, so learn the chord shape until it is automatic, and the arpeggio becomes a matter of unrolling notes you already own. Working out the chords a song is built on is exactly what makes its arpeggios easy to see and play, which is why understanding chord progressions pays off here. For the surrounding vocabulary, the music notation glossary keeps the definitions in one place.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is an arpeggio?
An arpeggio is a chord whose notes are played one at a time, in sequence, rather than struck together. The word comes from the Italian arpeggiare, meaning to play like a harp. It uses the same notes as the chord, just spread out in time instead of sounded all at once.
What is the difference between an arpeggio and a chord?
A chord is a group of notes sounded together at the same moment. An arpeggio is those same notes sounded one after another. So a C major chord and a C major arpeggio contain exactly the same pitches, C, E, and G. The only difference is timing: the chord is a stack, the arpeggio is a line.
Is an arpeggio the same as a broken chord?
In everyday use the two terms are near-synonyms, and many musicians use them interchangeably. There is a subtle distinction: a broken chord can repeat or reorder its notes in a set pattern, while an arpeggio usually runs straight through the chord tones in order, low to high or high to low. Every arpeggio is a broken chord, but not every broken chord is a strict arpeggio.
What is the difference between an arpeggio and a scale?
A scale moves stepwise through the notes of a key, one adjacent note to the next, while an arpeggio skips, following only the notes that belong to a chord. A C major scale is C D E F G A B; a C major arpeggio is C E G. The scale walks; the arpeggio leaps between chord tones.
Not sure whether a passage is an arpeggio or a block chord? Songscription writes the notes out from your recording, so you can see whether the notes are spread across time or stacked into a chord, and read the exact pitches either way.
