Where the Concept of Bridge Sections Came From–and What That Might Mean for the Future of Songwriting

 

In the 1800's, the music industry moneymaker was sheet music. If you wanted to hear a particular song, you'd wander to the store, buy a book of sheet music, and someone in your family would play that song at the piano. Everybody sing!

Then, about a century ago now, the music recording industry was born. Wax cylinders and records came first. For the first time in history–for the first time out of thousands and thousands of years of human history–it became possible to hear a concert in your home without actually attending the concert in person.

This was a completely new, even futuristic concept at the time–an artist could be recorded once, and then copies of the recorded performance could be sold over and over. Suddenly Louis Armstrong could perform in your living room at the drop of a needle.

That seems like a long time ago now that vinyl records emerged, but in reality it might as well have been yesterday. Radio is less than a hundred years old. Music itself, on the other hand, stretches back to the beginning of human history.

We think of Nashville as a place with a lot of music history, but the truth is: Nashville hasn't even reached its teenage years yet by historical standards. Going back thousands and thousands and thousands of years, wherever humans have settled there have always been poets, bards, songsters, songstresses. The tradition runs deep, and will continue long after you and I are gone.

Did you know that the concept of bridge sections came from 15th century German composers called the Minnesingers? The concept of the bridge found its way to New York City in the 1930's as German composers fled the rise of the Nazi party. Since then, the bridge section has flourished in American pop music, taking root in thousands of songs.

Take a second to reflect on what a useful concept the bridge has been for us. Doesn't that make you wonder what other ideas we might learn from the Minnesingers and adapt to modern music? Doesn't that make you wonder what other great techniques might be sitting around in the historical traditions of poetry and music composition, just waiting to find their way into your toolbox?

Here's another example: Brian Eno's quiet work in ambient music. The idea of music as a kind of textural, atmospheric background to other activities may seem new and strikingly different today, but that idea directly echoes Erik Satie's “furniture music” from 1917. Eno freely acknowledges the influence.

We're on the cusp of a new millenium here. The cost of recording an album has plummeted to a point where creative experiments and risks are easier to take. My great hope for the next twenty years of music is that we'll see a Renaissance of artsy, brave, “strange” songwriters willing to dig deep into tradition in search of new ways to craft songs that captivate the listener.

Sometimes backward is the way forward.