Music notation glossary · Ornaments
Arpeggio
roll the chord
As a Unicode character — to paste into text, spreadsheets or chat. Whether it appears depends on the font.
In the score
What it means
A wavy line before the chord: the notes come quickly one after another from the bottom up instead of together. An arrow on the line reverses the direction.
Arpeggio
The same four notes, now with the wavy line. In the sound they enter one after another, from the bottom up, and the gap is small enough that it still sounds like a chord and not like a scale. The arrowhead is not needed when the chord is broken upwards anyway; some editions print it regardless, to leave no doubt.
Related pages
Anotona does this for you
Photograph a page of sheet music or play the melody — Anotona finds the key, engraves the notes and transposes them into any other. Free.
See AnotonaEvery note on this page is computed, not typed in — following the rule that also makes F# major spell its seventh degree E#, not F.