Block Chords and Broken Chords

Block chords occur when all of the notes of a chord are played simultaneously in one solid “block”. The following shows examples of block chords.

Block chords
Block Chords
Broken chords occur when the notes of a chord are not played simultaneously. There are many types of patterns possible for broken chords. The following example shows a set of block chords, and then the same set of chords as broken chords. Both examples have the exact same chords with exactly the same notes, but with the first example as block chords, and the second example as broken chords.

Block chords - example 2
Block Chords
Broken chords
Broken Chords