“The bridges are always singing. The music inside them is always playing.”

Jodi Rose has been deeply listening to bridges around the world for more than 20 years. She records them using contact microphones, which pick up and amplify the vibrations inside solid objects. By attaching a contact microphone directly to a bridge’s cables, she can hear its inner monologues—vibrations that are always there, but ever changing.

Jodi laces her recordings into musical compositions, attuning us to the ways different bridges move and sway. Listening to her music is a meditative experience—one that might make you rethink the way you look at (and listen to) the bridges around you. 

And what’s motivated Jodi to travel the world listening to bridges? Well, if it isn’t clear already, she loves them. A lot.

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Listen to more of Jodi’s music here.

The episode artwork is titled “Future Bridge Score.” It’s by Jodi Rose in collaboration with AI VQGAN + CLIP (Nightcafe). It was made as part of “Singing Bridges 360: Sculpting a Bridge in Sound,” Jodi’s piece imagining bridges around the world singing in harmony.

Abridged is produced, sound designed, and mixed by Rebecca Seidel. The executive producers are Ian Enright and Megan Nadolski at Goat Rodeo.

Subscribe to Abridged and tell a bridge-loving friend: https://www.abridged.xyz/

Follow Becca and get in touch if you have a bridge story of your own: twitter.com/beccahope24

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