For A Good Song; Write Good Hooks!
In pop music, if you’re looking to create a good song, write it using simple, catchy, repetitive phrases in the lyrics as well as the music in many parts of your song. The whole idea is develop a strong “hook,” build your song around it, and let the song take you in different directions leading to other “mini-hooks” in the song.
When you’re trying to build a main song hook, keep in mind the initial ideas you come up with don’t necessarily have to end up in your chorus. Many hit songs have been written by creating a “hook” which eventually were placed in a verse or other song section instead of the chorus.
How To Use Simplicity To Your Advantage
The vast majority of the greatest songs in the history of respected pop music have used simplicity to create their hooks. I.e., from the early days of songs like “My Girl” (Temptations, written by Smokey Robinson, Ronald White,
Mick Jagger) to the present day, “Disturbia” (Rihanna, written by Robert Allen, Andre Merritt, Chris Brown).
Hit songs have historically used easy, sing-songy melodies with memorable, short lyric phrases with great success. The pop writing lesson here: to write a good song, write short melodies and lyrical lines (from one to three notes and words), then let this lead you wherever else you want to go with that particular song.
How To Use “Catchiness,” and “Repetitiveness” To Your Advantage
This one’s easy and enjoyable! Study some of your favorite songs and try to figure out what it is that attracts you to the song, and invariably the answer will be:
1. The song has one main hook that really stands out.Nine times out of ten that hook will be in the chorus. Take a look at Neyo’s big hit “Closer” and you’ll see the hook is actually contained in the prechorus (not the chorus). Notice also how the majority of hit songs have very repetitive main hooks; this is what keeps the listener coming back for more!
2. The song has a few other repetitive, catchy hooks I like to refer to as “mini-hooks.” Many times these come in the form of an instrumental intro riff (at the beginning of the song) that continues throughout the song whether through chord structure or underlying melody line.
Hooks are the biggest key to creating hit songs! It’s what you do with the song after you’ve created the great hook (i.e., strong verse writing, song makes sense, song is meaningful, etc.) that earns you either respectability or the dreaded “Cheese Award” and a nomination for one of the worst pop songs in history!
To create a catchy repetitive hook, you need to play your instrument or sing, and concentrate on 2 to 3 notes at a time until you like a certain combination, then build from there using one to three more notes at a time.
When you’ve hit on a a few notes that contain that certain singable part that makes you go “Wow, that sounds good (or cool)” you’ll know you have something people are going to love! Now you have the makings of a good song. Write on!
Once you start writing the rest of the song,try to think of catchy instrumental or melodic phrases to bracket (fill in the gaps) the vocals in certain areas using the same two to three note-finding method as your starting point (described above).
Oftentimes the only thing you need to bring a song to life is to fill in empty spots in your song by inserting mini-hooks, and by slightly changing the melody or words of your hook.
Bottom line is: after you’re done writing the song, if it hits you in the chest with the “wow” factor, it’s going to be a darn good song. Write away and keep churning out those hits!
