Do you ever write your own music?
I know that not many churches do this. In fact, ours doesn’t…at least not yet.
But having some previous songwriting experience I wanted to share something that I thought may be useful should you ever decide to try writing your own worship song.
Enter, the BRIDGE.
What is a “bridge” in music?
This term is used to denote a period in the song that is somewhat thematically different—yet (in most cases) overall consistent—with the rest of the song.
It will typically come between the last two choruses. So, you might have something like this:
- Intro
- Verse
- Chorus
- Verse
- Chorus
- Bridge
- Chorus
This adds an extra layer to the song and also provides a “pattern interrupt.” It helps to get attention.
Masterclass.com provides two reasons for thinking a song might include a bridge:
- To provide variety. A song that simply toggles back and forth between verse and chorus can become a bit predictable. Inserting a bridge can mix things up and keep the audience from falling into a lull. Often, the best way to do this is to assign a new key, tempo, or meter to the bridge to make it stand out from the rest of the song.
- To connect sections of a song. Think of the word “bridge” in its primary, most literal meaning. Just as a physical bridge is used to connect two places together, so too can a musical bridge connect two sections of a song. In this use, a bridge often comes before or after an instrumental solo. A bridge can connect that instrumental solo to a primary section of the song—which, in the vast majority of cases, is a chorus.
Ok — so you’re going to write a new worship song, and it’s going to have a bridge!
What should it be like?
Here are three suggestions:
Surprising
While there is no rule for what chord a bridge should start on, there are a couple ways you can make it stand out right from the beginning.
You could make the first note of the bridge to be a 7 flat or a 5 sharp. These are both attention-getters because they live outside of the major scale boundary lines, but can easily be integrated into a song that otherwise uses elements only from the major scale.
Another way to make a bridge surprising would be to add musical variety in. For example, maybe you briefly change the entire style of beat of the song. Stranger things have been done!
Build
Another great tactic you can use in crafting a bridge is to make sure the music builds throughout it.
This could be accomplished by having the drums build throughout the bridge to ramp up the intensity from the previous chorus.
Or—you could even have the music totally die down going into the bridge, build throughout it, and then make that last chorus HUGE!
Want to spice it up a tiny bit more? Add a “mod” (meaning, modulation — key change) to that last chorus. Even moving up one half step will help ramp up the intensity and really bring something powerful to that last chorus.
Anthem-y
If you’ll pardon my lack of technical precision here, I think a final great characteristic of bridges in music is that they lend themself to becoming somewhat of an anthem.
Often, this will be repetitive, which might make some uncomfortable. But you wanna know who else was a bit repetitive? Biblical authors. Ever read Psalm 136?
One of my FAVORITE songs in the whole world is “Behold Our God” by Sovereign Grace Music.
The bridge of this song confidently repeats:
You will reign forever (let Your glory fill the Earth)
You will reign forever (let Your glory fill the Earth)
You will reign forever (let Your glory fill the Earth)
You will reign forever (let Your glory fill the Earth)
What an amazing promise, right? Why not sing it a few times and let it really sink in? In this way, it becomes almost like an anthem. Something that, while it is not the main point of the song, makes it easy to remember and really makes the song come alive.
Applying one or more of these characteristics to the next song you write just might make the difference for you. Try it out, and let me know how it went.
Steve Schramm
P.S. If you want to learn more about creating great music, join our Worship By Numbers program for free today. We train help you understand music in a way you never thought possible before, reduce your rehearsal time, and have you learning new songs in 30 minutes or less! Here’s the link to join for free today: www.WorshipByNumbers.com