Breaktime!
A bright and (extremely) gorgeous woman asked me this question a while back:
Okay, suppose I wanted to buy a nice white shirt worth 97 Pesos. (I know you're thinking, 'where is he buying ANY shirt for 97 bucks?' The answer there is: Just play along.) To be able to buy the shirt I borrowed 50 Pesos from you and another 50 Pesos from another friend bringing it to a total 100 Pesos. I then get a change of 3 Pesos which I decided to split three ways. one for me, another for you and the last one goes to our other friend.
Now, giving you and our other friend 1 Peso each would reduce both my debts to 49 Pesos each. Adding both 49 Peso debts together makes 98 Pesos and adding the 1 Peso I decided to keep from the 3 Peso change makes 99 Pesos. What happened to the 1 Peso missing from the 100 Pesos I borrowed?
It's quite a thinker, isn't it? That woman sure is a piece of work.
Guitar Lesson: Writing Musical Hooks
After writing several guitar tips the past year, I've realized that although I've been giving out a lot of individual information about playing the guitar, I never really wrote anything that would glue it all together. Sure they've been tips about picking, whammy bar frenzy and lead techniques, but in the realm of the music industry speed and flashiness isn't gonna cut it at all. One thing is certain when writing a good song, it's not supposed to be a sprint, it's supposed to be a marathon.
In all the years I've been listening to music, I can honestly say that there are multitudes of songs that just fade into the background. They're good, yes. But do they pique my senses? Cause just so much as there are an infinite amount of good songs out there that just seem to blend into the room, there are those fortunate few who stick out like a sore thumb. Those songs you can pinpoint in an instant. And believe me, if you want the satisfaction of having people sing your song out of nowhere, you're gonna
want to have that sore thumb.
The Hook is a portion of a song that is responsible for the success of virtually every chart-topping song in the history of music. The name in itself pretty much explains the purpose of the device. A hook is meant to embed itself to the listener's mind to create somewhat of a recall. This is the part of the song in which people tend to remember to hum or sing after listening to a song. In layman's terms, a musical hook is just a technical term for what causes an LSS or a "Last Song Syndrome." Most of the time it's the lyrics of songs that create such a recall. But not to be outdone by lyrics alone, Instruments can also create hooks that can captivate listeners. And that's exactly what we're going to talk about in this lesson.
A Musical Hook can be created in several ways. Some of the ways are vague and some of them are very easy to do. To break it all down, Hooks have a lot to do with the song's musicality and (sad to say) Marketability. Hooks are often executed as melodic, repetitive, attention-grabbing and memorable lines, phrases or licks. Now that we have that down that Hooks are supposed to be a subtle form of mind-torture, there are a few things that can get you started:
1. Musicality / Melody - Try to write a lick that calls out a certain emotion. Play around with modes or scales that are melancholy if the song is meant to be somber. Inversely, use major scales or lighter modes on more upbeat or cheerful songs. When thinking of a Hook, always keep the lick short. Most Hooks are only 7 to 10 seconds long.
2. Repetition - This is pretty much self explanatory but for the sake of elaborating some more, it just boils down to one word: Chorus. Also, most songs that employ this method tend to use the chorus as an outro to the song. Because by repeating the chorus a few more times at the end than what you would in the body of the song itself, you've managed to make your hook the last thing your listener will hear after he or she is through listening to your song. Furthermore, it would be less likely to dull your listener to death by repeating your chorus at the end than in the middle.
3. Marketability - To be able to employ this, you gotta be able to know your audience. You have to first know what kind of style your listeners like. It doesn't have to be too far of a stretch actually. By simply getting elements from popular genres (The obvious ones like the Four on the floor beat of Punk Rock, The High-Gain and drop tuned guitar sound of Heavy Metal and the Slap Bass of Funk) and incorporating your own sound to it, you'll be able to captivate your listener's ear somehow by giving them what they want and at the same time giving them something new.
Always remember that writing quality songs with quality hooks take a lot of practice. The truth of the matter is, it doesn't matter how much time you spent on a song or how much musical theory you put in it. If you're audience doesn't like it, they don't like it. You can't force them to like your song. But bear in mind that it is just part of the process in refining your writing ability.
Some good examples to base instrumental hooks from are "Beat it" by Michael Jackson, "Sweet child o' mine" by Guns and Roses and "Wonderful tonight" by Eric Clapton just to name a few. Have fun and good luck. Ciao!
