Question: I came across a bar that sounds like this while transcribing a piece for keyboard. Is there a correct/better way to write this?

[![it sounds like this](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3R2AN.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/3R2AN.png)

Answer: 
A broken chord like this is notated with **double stems for each note**. One set of stems corresponds to the eighth-note onsets of each pitch. The second set of stems corresponds to the duration of each pitch and shows the tie to the final, full chord.

[![Notated arpeggio with double note-heads](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Ve5v.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9Ve5v.png)

It is **acceptable to use shared note heads** in this kind of situation. For example, the first note could have a half-note head, but an eighth-note stem.

[![Shared note head arpeggio](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fw3Dt.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/Fw3Dt.png)

Here is a similar example from the left hand, final two measures of Brahms's "Intermezzo" Op. 119, No. 2. Note here that Brahms clearly expects the fingers to sustain the pitches. The pedal marking is not for the sustain, but rather for the "warmth" of the overall sound.

[![Brahms Op. 119, No. 2, LH, final two bars](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Ugx0.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6Ugx0.png)

A second example, from Chopin, shows **the importance of the ties versus a simple pedal indication**.1

This first image is the first four measures of Chopin's Prelude in C major, Op. 28, No. 1, from the Paderewski edition (i.e., this is Paderewski's interpretation of how this should be played). Note the one-pedal-per-measure scheme, which is marked "Ped. simile" ("keep pedaling in the same way") in the fourth measure.

[![Chopin Prelude Op. 28, No. 1, mm. 1–4](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8X9Xs.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/8X9Xs.png)

However, this notation clearly does not mean to hold all notes of the chords. The sound would be extremely muddy. Consider this notation in light of the final three measures (mm. 32–34), shown below. Measure 32 is played as shown in mm. 1–4, but measures 33 and 34 are explicitly tied to illustrate the intention of a slowly arpeggiated block chord. (Also, the **absence of double note heads is another alternative notation** that is sometimes used.)

[![Chopin Op. 28, No. 1, mm. 32–34](https://i.stack.imgur.com/p8xFD.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/p8xFD.png)
That's the way I've seen it. Obviously a wavy line won't do the job, a player would play the notes too quickly in succession.

The other way would be to write the lowest note as full value, and write as SATB, using rests before each of the other notes, which would then have their own appropriate values, losing a quaver each time in your example. But that's even messier.

Or - write out the first 3 quavers consecutively, each tied across to those same notes to, say, a minim chord to fill the bar. It's not technically correct, but tidies it all up, and the expected result is more than apparent.