What are "broken chords"?

[medjuck]

I first posted this in the thread about the Chu Berry Mosaic, but got no reponse:

A couple of times in the notes Loren Schoenberg refers to the guitarists playing "broken chords". What exactly does he mean? (Where he mentions them in regard to Danny Barker I hear Barker playing every note of the chord separately but where he talks about Allen Reuss playing behind Mildred Bailey I just hear regular chords.)

[AllenLowe]

he MIGHT mean that they are not exact triads, maybe odd inversions - I'm actually not sure, but I can email Loren to ask him - though I'm not sure if I can do it for a week or so, as I'm going out of town soon - can you give me the full paragraph?

[J Larsen]

Isn't a borken chord a type of arpeggio (ie the notes of the chord are played individually instead of all at once)?

[Larry Kart]

As J Larsen says: "A chord in which the notes are not played simultaneously but rather they are played successively." But then that doesn't explain what Medjuck heard.

[J Larsen]

I think that sometimes on the guitar a "broken chord" can also mean that you play "chunks" of the chord individually. Hendrix (and many others) did that a *lot* - he'd bang away on the bottom half of the chord for a few strokes and then play the top half with the bottom half still ringing out.

[medjuck]

As J Larsen says: "A chord in which the notes are not played simultaneously but rather they are played successively." But then that doesn't explain what Medjuck heard.

Right. That's what I hear from Danny Barker but not from Reuss. (But then again my ears are shot from old age and too many rock concerts.)

[AllenLowe]

that definition makes sense - on the other hand the image I have is of chords played with intervals that are not "exact," so to speak, in which the sound of the chord is given implicity with somewhat disordered intervals -

Edited April 16, 2007 by AllenLowe

[DukeCity]

From the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians :

"Broken Chord The effect produced by performing the notes of a chord successively, rather than simultaneously, in any order: thus, a species of melodic figuration related to Arpeggio, and further discussed under Ornaments"