they were going out of their way
The Bridge
Back to some firmer statements then. And this time, I've got Paul Desmond on my side. Does Cb-Abm6-Bbm7-Ebm7-Abm7-Db7-Gbmaj7 mean anything to you?
Paul Desmond, credited for composing Take Five, once said in an interview that he thought the bridge of Take Five was the reason it became a hit. He also told the interviewer that he was so glad he didn't throw it away, because at first he thought he couldn't do anything with it. Now what was he talking about? The bridge of a musical piece is a segment which links two other segments to eachother, much like you would expect from a bridge.. Most of the time, also in the case of Take Five, the two segments that are linked are the same. For the untrained listener, it's the part in a song with a different melody, which links two similar parts together. This in order to not let the song get boring.
If we analyze the bridge of Take Five, it's useful to start with the chord changes. The "-" will indicate a change within a bar, and the "|" will indicate the separation of two bars. Because the tune is in the 5/4 time signature, it's a bit tricky to write down, but the bold chords are 3 counts, and the normal ones are 2 counts. Still with me? The bridge is actually the second theme of Take Five, and this theme is repeated once, with a small alteration in the last bar, the second time around. When written down:
Cb-Abm6 | Bbm7-Ebm7 | Abm7-Db7 | Gbmaj7-Gbmaj7
Cb-Abm6 | Bbm7-Ebm7 | Abm7-Db7 | Fm7-Bb7
More Soon - Discuss this article on the forum! Click on Dave Brubeck and then Take Five.
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