In music notation, arpeggiation is a type of ornamentation unique to the piano and other chord-playing instruments. It is drawn as a vertical squiggle just to the left of a chord of notes. The musician interprets it as playing the lowest note in the chord first, then adding the next-highest quickly after, and so forth one note at a time until the entire chord (usually a musical arpeggio, hence the name) is being played.
On the staff, it looks something like this:
/\ |
---| /-----------|-----------------------------------------
|/ |
---/-------------|-----------------------------------------
/| / O|
-/-|/\--------\--|-----------------------------------------
| | | / |
|--|--|-------\-O|-----------------------------------------
\ | | / |
--\|_/--------\-O|-----------------------------------------
| / |
\| \-O--
and is played as a series of thirty-second notes and an eigth note joined by ties:
________________
/\ |___|___|___| |
---| /----------|___|___|___|----|-----------------------
|/ | | | | __ |
---/------------|---|---|---|/ \|-----------------------
/| | | | *| *|
-/-|/\----------|---|---|---|----|-----------------------
| | | | | | | |
|--|--|---------|---|--*|--*|---*|-----------------------
\ | | | | |\_/|\__/|
--\|_/----------|--*|--*|--*|---*|-----------------------
| | |\_/|\_/|\__/|
\| -*---*---*---*----*--
\__/\__/\__/\___/