Author Notes
When I see a group of birds on wires they remind me of notes on a sheet of music, especially in the case of the accompanying photo where there are 5 lines.
In Western musical notation, the staff (US) or stave (UK) is a set of 5 horizontal lines and 4 spaces, each representing a different musical pitch or, in the case of a percussion staff, different percussion instruments.
Adapted from Wikipedia:
The music theory term "arpeggio" (or broken chord) simply describes when the notes of a chord are played one after the other rather than at the same time.
The word arpeggio comes from the Italian word "arpeggiare", which means to play on a harp.
Even though the notes of an arpeggio are not played or sung all together at the same time, listeners hear the sequence of notes as forming a chord.
Arpeggios enable composers writing for monophonic instruments that play one note at a time (e.g. flute, saxophone, trumpet), to voice chords and chord progressions in musical pieces.
Arpeggios and broken chords are also used to help create rhythmic interest, a notable example of which is the Alberti bass figuration. This was widely used in piano music from the Classical music period. With an Alberti bass, rather than play the notes of a chord all at once, the pianist plays simple rhythmic figures in which the notes of the chord are played as a broken chord.
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