An arpeggio is a chord sung or played one note at a time. As it is not possible to sing two notes simultaneously with one voice, singing an arpeggio is the only way a singer can sing a chord.
The value of arpeggios is that they enable you to create melodies and parts which fit chord progressions perfectly, since every note of an arpeggio is a note of the accompanying chord. The following C major arpeggio consists of the notes C, E and G. These are the root, third and fifth of a C major chord.
For every type of chord there is a corresponding arpeggio. Shown next is a C minor arpeggio which consists of the notes C, Eb and G–the root, flattened third and fifth of a C minor chord.
Write out the following arpeggios using the same note values as in bar 2 of the example above.