Bridge (music)

In music, especially western popular music, a bridge is a contrasting section that prepares for the return of the original material section. The bridge may be the third eight-bar phrase in a thirty-two-bar form (the B in AABA), or may be used more loosely in verse-chorus form, or, in a compound AABA form, used as a contrast to a full AABA section.

The term comes from a German word for bridge, Steg, used by the Meistersingers of the 15th to 18th century to describe a transitional section in medieval bar form. The German term became widely known in 1920s Germany through musicologist Alfred Lorenz and his exhaustive studies of Richard Wagner's adaptations of bar form in his popular 19th century neo-medieval operas. The term entered the English lexicon in the 1930s—translated as bridge—via composers fleeing Nazi Germany who, working in Hollywood and on Broadway, used the term to describe similar transitional sections in the American popular music they were writing.

Role

The Bridge

The Bridge may refer to:

Art, entertainment and media

Art

Film

The Bridge (short story)

"The Bridge" ("Die Brücke") is a short story by Franz Kafka. It was published posthumously in Beim Bau der Chinesischen Mauer (Berlin, 1931). The first English translation by Willa and Edwin Muir was published by Martin Secker in London in 1933. It appeared in The Great Wall of China. Stories and Reflections (New York: Schocken Books, 1946).

The story is told from the first person point of view. In the tale, the bridge discusses how, above the ravine, it grasps onto each end. When someone, or something, begins to suddenly place pressure on the structure, it collapses. The last sentence mentions it is breaking apart, falling upon the jagged rocks below.

Analysis

The Bridge is one of many very short pieces by Kafka (flash fiction) yet it is ripe with meaning. The bridge demonstrates human characteristics so at least one interpretation is that the events described are taking place within the mind of a distressed person.

References

Kwai

The Kwai are an insectoid humanoid fictional species in the DC Comics universe, created by Dan Abnett, Andy Lanning and Oliver Coipel. Allies of the Legion of Super-Heroes, they were a nomadic, matriarchical people who mostly displayed a pacifistic approach to life. The few exceptions to the last of these, such as Shikari, were dubbed "Lonestars".

History

The Kwai are one of the thousands of species Element Lad was ultimately responsible for the creation of after he became stranded a billion years in the past of the "Second Galaxy," in his indefinitely prolonged lifespan. They were an insect-like humanoid race, whose distinguishing features included slate-grey skin with black tattoo-like markings, dragonfly-like wings, retractable armoured exoskeletons and the ability to find any path if such existed, even without obvious tracks to follow.

Their travels usually led them to follow "feral stars" - newly appearing stars in their path - which they considered good luck. When, in the 31st century, Element Lad's home time period, they followed a "star" which was in reality the Legionnaire Wildfire, it led them to encounter the Progeny, a xenophobic beetle-like race who began to hunt them down. While fleeing from a Progeny attack which killed two of her friends, Shikari would encounter the other Legionnaires, held in stasis, who had been flung through a rift to the Second Galaxy - though displaced only in space rather than time and space. Revived, they aided her in driving off the Progeny, then followed her to their "brief-home," where they helped the Kwai to gather resources for moving on, and the Kwai helped in turn to make their heavily damaged ship functional, and created a new containment suit for Wildfire from their plastic-like "Use-weave". They and the Legion then went their separate ways, although Shikari would remain with the team.