Enhanced Pop Song - Extended Intro & Bridge
Entended Intro
As with songs like the Friends theme tune I'll be there for you by The Rembrandts, a guitar hook can help to liven up a song and add extra 'stickiness'. In this example we will imagine that there is a guitar hook or riff being played over an extended intro. The structure for our intro will now be as follows:
| Dm | / | F | / | | | C | / | G | / | | | Dm | / | C | / | | | Bb | / | E7 | / | | |
| Dm | / | F | / | | | C | / | G | / | | | Dm | / | C | / | | | Bb | / | E7 | / | | |
The Bridge
A bridge is used to create a link between the verse and the chorus. It allows the songwriter a chance to speak from a different perspective and add contrasting variation building to the chorus or hook line. When we create our bridge we can look at using different chords to those used in the verse and chorus or we can simply re-order the existing chords.
This is the bridge for our template which introduces a few new chords:
| F#m | / | / | / | | | F | / | / | / | | | Am | / | F | / | | | E7 | / | Am | / | | |
| F#m | / | / | / | | | F | / | / | / | | | Am | / | F | / | | | E7 | / | Am | / | | |
Here the bridge starts with the F#m chord. This is the relative minor chord to the key of A major which the song is written in. Moving from a major chord to its relative minor, or vice versa, is a common way of changing between verse and bridge or verse and chorus.
This bridge sequence lasts for 8 bars, just long enough to add some extra colour into our song.
The bridge can be used as often as you feel necessary. Sometimes it will be used only once in a song, other times it can be used after a guitar solo to lead the song back to the chorus. In this example the bridge is used three times.
More on an Enhanced pop song