Lecture notes for Certificate Songwriting on hooks in popular songs

1. THE HOOK
What is a hook, where should it go, and how do I write
one?

2. learning outcomes
• 1. Identify the hooks of 5 hit songs and discuss
why they are effective
• 2. Understand how pitch, pace, repetition and
contrast can be effectively used in creating a hook
• 3. Create a melodic hook based on a short song
title.

3. What is a Hook?
• It catches the listeners attention
• It sums up the experience of the song
• It is easy to recall
• It gets stuck in your head!

4. Identifying Hooks
• Listen closely to these songs, and identify the
hooks. Some songs may have more than one hook.
What makes them catchy? How are they used?

5. Chorus
• How to make your chorus stand out?
• make it bigger (or smaller)
• make it more repetitive
• this is usually (but not always) the HOOK!

6. The Chorus
• Make certain your chorus presents the main
message of your song. What you're doing by doing
this, is you're cueing your listener to pay attention
and understand what the point of your song is. This
is your moment in the song to stop and summarize.

7. • Putting the Hook at the End of Your Chorus "Gives It
Extra Punch."
• Build up to and reveal your hook—this idea of
tension and release makes it more dramatic. It's
kind of like building up to the punchline of a joke.
Often, you will also have your hook at the top of the
chorus, but that doesn't mean you can't also put it
at the end of the chorus too.
The Chorus

8. • Keep your chorus lyric the same in each chorus.
What this does is it makes your song easier to learn
and more memorable. There's no point in being
overly clever here. Choruses are designed to be
remembered and sung along to.
• If, however, you really feel the need to change your
chorus lyric, I'd recommend doing it in your last
chorus where you've already established what the
main chorus lyric is; or, maybe try adjusting only
one line of the chorus while keeping other lines the
same (this can even be used to drive the narrative
of the song.
The Chorus

9. • Make your melody simple.
• The whole goal of melody writing is to make your
melody learnable and memorable.
• There doesn’t need to be many notes in the melody
and by just altering the phrasing and the duration,
we can make a simple melody memorable.
Melody and Hooks

10. • Make your melody unique.
• A unique melody is what sets your song apart. But
you shouldn't do this at the expense of
accessibility. Beware of being overly clever. Unique
is good, but overly complicated rarely works.
Melody and Hooks

11. • Repeating melodic figures makes them
memorable.
• This is yet another device to help your listeners
remember and learn your song, and it works across
all sections of your song, your verses, your
choruses, the bridge, etc.
• AND is particularly important for the hook!
Melody and Hooks

12. Chorus vs Verse Melodies
• The chorus stands out, is memorable and sums up
the experience.
• The verse often has more detail in the lyrics, so the
melody can be more conversational. Allow the
focus to be on the words.
• The verse may employ more word painting

13. Other sections
• Pre-chorus: help to build the energy of the chorus
• Bridge: Space to do something quite different

14. Melodic Hooks
• Using small melodic elements as a hook.
• Catchy fragments of tunes.
• These are then applied to lyrics as well.

15. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV2s0UIPOQY
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5xIUeNJIrak

16. Time to write some
hooks!