is a broken chord the same as an arpeggio??

Yes and no. An Arpeggio is a broken chord, but theres loads of different patterns from Broken chords. Check the Syllabus's if your doing a grade, they show u all the patterns u need to know.

Hand,Toe,Knee is right - they are very similar.
They are both built on the 1st 3rd and 5th of the scale.

An arpeggio in its simplest form is 1358 of the key or scale, and usually goes straight up and straight down again for one or more octaves.

A broken chord pattern may change direction several times, eg the grade one (piano) pattern where it goes 1-3-5,3-5-8,5-8-10,8 etc. Hope the numbers make sense.

Maggie

thanx for replying

Not exactly but similar. In an broken chord you king of go up in an arppegio in the notes of the tonic chord

yeh and i love broken chords its soo fun and easy to play!!

The only main difference I can see between them is in the way that they are played. Arpeggios, as mentioned before, play 1 3 5 up and down like a harp )(hence "arpeggio") whereas the broken chords take into acount the inversions....root, 1st inversion, 2nd inversion...

Gae