I: To make a very large Musical Bridge, fit a suspension span with musically tuned structural members (girders, cables, etc) which would be struck by huge hammers activated as vehicles cross steel plates embedded in the roadway. Trucks produce fortissimo notes, motorcycles light grace notes; heavy traffic creates an allegro tempo and sparse traffic an haunting adagio. Minor details to overcome: vibration-induced crumbling of concrete, stress fractures in metal, noise complaints, and of course astronomical cost. It would be a bemuse-ical behemoth, though.

II: Build miniturized stereo receivers into dental protheses. Your household CD player then trnsmits music on limited-range FM and your dental work plays the music through high-fidelity steel pins extending into your maxilla. Of course the bones transmit the sound to your ears, and there you have it: a perfectly private music system in your Musical Bridge. ("No, Jimmy, don't play with the volume knob... NO! AAAAAUUUGGGHHH MY BRAIN HURTS!!")

III: Embed magnetic markers in decks of playing cards. When each card is played sensors in the card table read the marker, and speakers generate a pleasing musical tone unique to that card. The note is sustained long enough to allow a full chord to be heard as the trick is played out. Voila: Musical Bridge. The simplest scheme would assign a 12-tone scale to the deck of cards, giving a 4-octave range with the aces left over. Players who dislike atonal music could set the table so that diamonds play notes based on a C chord, clubs a G chord, etc. Or the diamonds and clubs together could make up a 3-octave C Maj scale, and the hearts and spades an overlapping C Min scale, with aces providing extra accidentals.
-- Dog Ed, Apr 16 2001

"When I was driving once I saw this painted on a bridge..."
-- bookworm, Apr 16 2001


Rods Tiger: [Did idea start with song bridge?] No, the suspension bridge came first. Pondered the song bridge for a bit, though.
-- Dog Ed, Apr 17 2001


Where would you find a wide enough stretch of trouble waters to warrant a suspension bridge?
-- Aristotle, Apr 17 2001


When I first read the title of this I thought you meant use (chords) I, II, III as a (musical) bridge.. hmm what, no circle of fifths?
-- professorfrink, May 12 2002


You can call it the Ponticello.
-- bristolz, May 12 2002



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