“Arpeggi,”is a new Radiohead song, premiered on March 27, as reported by at ease.
“Arpeggi” is the Italian plural for the term “arpeggio.” “Arpeggio” is defined by the OED as the “employment of the notes of a chord in rapid succession instead of simultaneously; a chord thus played or sung.” “Arpeggi” is not listed in the OED as an English plural.
The term “arpeggio” derives from “arpeggiare” meaning to play upon the harp, a term deriving from “arpa” meaning harp. The first appearance of “arpeggio” in English dates to 1742 with Nathan Bailey’s An universal etymological English dictionary.
2 replies on “Message 182: Arpeggi”
Here- “employment of the notes of a chord in rapid succession instead of simultaneously; a chord thus played or sung.â€? a CHORD most be from four notes .Arpeggi created on three notes (in beginning – d-g-e,e-a-fis etc)So Arpeggio – from 4 ,Arpeggi – from 3.So it is new word in classical music theory 😉
Firstly, a chord generally has to be made up of THREE, not four notes. So a C major chord is made up of the notes C, E and G.
All major and minor chords are made up of three notes.
A four note chord will have a different character – maj7 min7 dim7 sus4, etc etc etc – but the point remains for something to be called a chord, it must have at least three notes in it.
There is no difference between arpeggio and arpeggi in terms of the chords involved.
The only reason arpeggi isn’t in the dictionary, is, as you say because it is an Italian plural. The word arpeggi is however used as the plural in English as well. But ‘arpeggios’ is also acceptable.
I’m afraid you haven’t discovered anything new in music theory today!