Whether you’re pitching your songs to a music publisher, an A&R rep or direct to a record producer—or perhaps trying to sell your music direct to fans through iTunes or your own website—your songs must have one essential ingredient to help them sell … a memorable HOOK that will get inside the listener’s head.
A musical hook is the line in a song—usually the title line in the chorus—that re- ally stands out and lets people know what the song is called. It’s the one line (both melodically and lyrically) that people should be able to remember long after the song has finished.
Many established songwriters (especially top liners) concentrate on writing the hook before they even start working on the verse and the chorus. They often build the rest of the song around the hook because they know it’s the most important part. Some writers even keep ‘hook books’—notebooks full of hook ideas and catchy musical phrases.
Unfortunately, writers who are just starting out often don’t understand the importance of building an easy-to-remember, attention-grabbing hook into their songs. They don’t realize that the craft of songwriting involves telling the song’s story in the verse whilst musically building tension that peaks and resolves itself in the hook in the chorus. Without this ‘payoff’, listeners may not feel satisfied by the song.
Failing to make sure a song has a strong, frequently repeated hook also means you’re making it harder for listeners to easily understand and remember the song when they hear it for the first time.
Whatever style of music you’re writing, if you have a great hook that expresses in just a few words and notes what the song is all about, then you’ll have the starting point for a great song.
How do you know if you’ve written a great hook? Try playing it to friends and relatives and see if they can hum it afterwards. And if you can’t remember the hook yourself the next day, it can’t be that great!
Always keep in mind, memorable hooks are what music publishers, record labels, producers and artists are all looking for. If they don’t hear a killer hook inside the first 60 seconds of your demo, they may not bother listening to the rest of the song.
In fact, the boss of one dance label reckons you have even less time than that to hook the listener. “People on average give a song seven seconds on the radio be- fore they change the channel,” he said. “So it’s not enough to have one hook any- more. You’ve got to have a hook in the intro, a hook in the pre-chorus, a hook in the chorus, and a hook in the bridge.”
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