Bridges and Joins
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Getting your singers to start the next verse is less difficult but again the old "pause, off for two beats and re-start" is often clumsy. A purpose designed bridge will help enormously.

The tune Camberwell  (At the Name of Jesus) was one of the first in recent times to include a bridge. Similarly Patrick Appleford's Living Lord  has a short bridge which can be built in to the play-over.

It has to be said that not all hymns and songs lend themselves to an easy bridge but many do; those that don't probably just need a little more thought and experimentation.

A crucial area for study here is what the tune is doing; are parts of it repeated? In Camberwell  the third line of music is the same as the first for the first seven notes so your play-over can start at that line and run through to the end very smoothly.

So you will need to look most carefully at the hymn structure. For example there are many AABA hymns. By this I mean the music for lines 1, 2 & 4 are identical or nearly so. This will affect your play-over and how you piece together a bridge. Looking in detail at the music is key and from that you can construct bridges between verses - mostly I have used the same bridge before each verse in a hymn but you may like to vary them; but be sure that you get back to the starting point in a way that clarifies beyond any doubt that you are arriving at the next verse!

 
   
 

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