What are bridges?

r1ceburgers

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what are bridges? what does it mean by first bridge play these chords and on the second bridge play these chords?
 
It's a contrasting section of a musical piece. It's neither the verse nor the chorus.

Popular songs usually put in a bridge after the 2nd chorus. Something like:

Verse
Chorus
Verse
Chorus
Bridge
Chorus
 
If the chorus is the part that everyone remembers the words to, and the verse is the part that nobody remembers the words to ... than the bridge is the oddball part that sounds different from the chorus and verse, that only fanboys remember the words to.

Two bridges with different chord progressions? Interesting. What song are you talking about??
 
Yeah, I've written tunes with different lyrics for different appearances of the bridge but never a different progression.

In the standard tin pan alley song format you have four sections, AABA. All the A parts have the same chord progression. The B part (sometimes also called the bridge) has a different chord progression. Wikipedia does a pretty good job explaining it.

Most of them have a (nearly forgotten) third section... call it the intro. So the song would go CAABA. Even if you repeated the AABA parts usually the C part was just the once, at the beginning. Since most of the initial recordings of the old tunes, especially the jazz ones, were done on 78 rpm records (with their limited amount of time) the intro was often dropped and the band would do, like two repetitions of the AABA part (so the soloists could blow). Then they'd finish out with a BA. Call it AABAAABABA. Snake Suspenderz does a lot of tunes in that format.

The letters can be whatever, but generally you use ABC, etc. and just tell the order one plays the parts of the tune. The famous Genesis tune Abacab was named that because that's the order the parts fell into (and apparently the boys in the band couldn't think of a better name).
 
i sometimes see refrains incorrectly referred to as a bridges. as far as i know, there is usually only one bridge in a song. and thats the part, as said, that sounds completely different from the rest of the song... a song within the song, if you will. if it is repeated (usually after a verse and before a chorus) i would refer to it as a refrain.
 
thats the part, as said, that sounds completely different from the rest of the song... a song within the song, if you will.

Bridges do usually have different chords and melodies than the verse and the chorus, but I would hesitate to call it a "song within a song." That terminology implies completeness. Bridges don't usually resolve on a 1 chord. Most bridges lead into either verse or the chorus. If you played it alone, it wouldn't sound complete.

if it is repeated (usually after a verse and before a chorus) i would refer to it as a refrain.

I call those parts, "pre-choruses."
 
Bridges do usually have different chords and melodies than the verse and the chorus, but I would hesitate to call it a "song within a song." That terminology implies completeness. Bridges don't usually resolve on a 1 chord. Most bridges lead into either verse or the chorus. If you played it alone, it wouldn't sound complete.



I call those parts, "pre-choruses."

re: a song within a song: youre right. i just like to call it a song within a song because of the beauty of a well written bridge. i suck at song writing, but when i hear a good bridge, i sometimes think to myself how awesome it would be for a song to be written based on that one part.
re: pre-choruses: so what would you define a refrain as? maybe im just confusing myself more hahaha.
 
I've always thought that a refrain is a one or two line button at the end of every verse. Choruses are usually more than one or two lines.

An example of a refrain would be that one line at the end of "Ode to Billy Joe" -

And Billy Joe MacAllister's jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge...
 
Refrain is the French word for chorus. It would make sense that in English they are also synonymous. Webster's dictionary says: Refrain. A phrase, verse, or verses repeated at intervals in a song or poem, as after each stanza.
 
No picture from deach of a crossing bridge? :p
 
Been lurking around the forum for about a week now. Can't wait to get in on all those deach jokes. Maybe some day I'll get them :p
 
Been lurking around the forum for about a week now. Can't wait to get in on all those deach jokes. Maybe some day I'll get them :p

I don't understand half of them. deach is a moron. He sits on the forum all day just to hijack threads and make snarky remarks.
 
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