Piano Notation Help

I'm not a pianist, and therefore am not familiar with piano notation, so maybe someone could help me.

I want to notate a sort of rapidly and repeatedly arpeggiated chord. Like, a chord, in this case an Eb major triad Eb-G-Bb, with those three notes played repeatedly over and over. Kind of like a trill, but... with three notes. Understand? :P Thanks in advance!

I think the only way is to write the three notes out as hemidemisemiquavers or whatever is right for the speed you want.

Why not just write it as a tremolo between those three notes? It would be like a normal tremolo between two notes, except you would connect the second note (your G) to the third note (your Bb)

Peace on Earth,

-John

Why not just write it as a tremolo between those three notes? It would be like a normal tremolo between two notes, except you would connect the second note (your G) to the third note (your Bb)

Peace on Earth,

-John

Yeah, that's what you probably want to do.

Like this:

Like this:

It seems like you want something along the lines of the third beat of Sys65's second measure. You might also be able to get away with a note stack with the tremolo symbol on the stem and the arp. symbol (this will look cleanest but won't be completely clear unless you write a note to the performer; if you plan to use the tremolo idea a lot it might be worth it).

Yeah, Sys had the right idea in that second measure... So if I wrote the three notes like a chord, then added the little wavy-arpeggio-bracket and a tremolo, that would work?

The traditional way to abbreviate this is to first notate it "literally" as in SYS65's last example, then just as chords with tremolo dashes and a written "arpeggio" (or "simile", if you prefer) below it:

As you see, you can also change the chords freely like this, unless the pattern changes somehow, in which case you have to state the whole pattern again literally.

This works with all kinds of different arpeggio patterns. Another variant:

It also works with repeated patterns that have nothing to do with an arpeggio, but in this case you definitely have to write "simile" instead of "arpeggio":

In other words: You can abbreviate your pattern quite easily with simple chords and tremolo dashes, as long as you first once state the pattern clearly as a reference (and depending on the complexity of the pattern you might have to state it twice or three times before abbreviating it).

If abbreviations are going to be used, I consider essential to indicate the desired draw at least in the first tempos like in Gardener's last example, then the "simile" because without it, can be misunderstood, if the tempo is not very fast, the pianist will play the 3 notes at the same time each 16ths