Third bridge

The 3rd bridge is an extended playing technique used on the electric guitar and other string instruments that allows a musician to produce distinctive timbres and overtones that are unavailable on a conventional string instrument with two bridges (a nut and a saddle). The timbre created with this technique is close to that of gamelan instruments like the bonang and similar Indonesian types of pitched gongs. A third bridge can be devised by inserting a rigid preparation object between the strings and the body or neck of the instrument, effectively dividing the string into distinct vibrating segments. Third bridge instruments can be custom-made by experimental luthiers (as with guitars designed and played by Hans Reichel); modified from a non-third bridge instrument (as with conventional guitars modified with a pencil or screwdriver under the strings); or may take advantage of design quirks of factory-built instruments (as with the Fender Jazzmaster, which has strings that continue from the "standard" bridge to the vibrato mechanism). Perhaps the best-known examples of this technique come from No Wave artists like Glenn Branca and Sonic Youth. The 3rd bridge technique has a physical connection with Pythagoras' monochord, because both function with the scale of harmonics. Many non-Western musical scales and musical instruments share these consonant just pitch relations. On a standard guitar, the string is held above the soundboard by two nodes: the "nut" (near the headstock) and the "bridge" (near the player's right hand on a standard guitar). A player sounding a note on a standard guitar vibrates a single portion of the string (between the nut and the bridge or between their fretting finger and the bridge). In contrast, a third bridge divides the string into two pieces. When played at one part of a string, the opposed part can resonate in a subharmonic of the struck part, depending on a predictable mathematical ratio of the strings' lengths. On harmonic positions the created multiphonic tone is consonant and increases in volume and sustain because of the reciprocal string resonance.