Hook (music)

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A hook is a musical idea, often a short riff, passage, or phrase, that is used in popular music to make a song appealing and to "catch the ear of the listener." [1] The term generally applies to popular music, especially rock, R&B, hip hop, dance, and pop. In these genres, the hook is often found in, or consists of, the chorus. A hook can be either melodic or rhythmic, and often incorporates the main motif for a piece of music. [2]

Contents

Definitions

One definition of a hook is "a musical or lyrical phrase that stands out and is easily remembered." [3] Definitions typically include some of the following: that a hook is repetitive, attention-grabbing, memorable, easy to dance to, and has commercial potential and lyrics. A hook has been defined as a "part of a song, sometimes the title or key lyric line, that keeps recurring." [4] Alternatively, the term has been defined as

the foundation of commercial songwriting, particularly hit-single writing, [varying in length from the repetition of] one note or a series of notes ... [to] a lyric phrase, full lines, or an entire verse. The hook is 'what you're selling' [5]

and can be something as insubstantial as a 'sound' (such as da doo ron ron or toora-loora-loo) but

ideally should contain one or more of the following: (a) a driving, danceable rhythm; (b) a melody that stays in people's minds; (c) a lyric that furthers the dramatic action, or defines a person or place. [5]

While some melodic hooks include skips of an octave or more to make the line more interesting, a hook can be equally catchy by employing rhythmic syncopation or other devices. A hook may also garner attention from listeners from other factors, such as the vocal timbre or instrumentation, as in the case of the Beach Boys' use of an Electro-Theremin in "Good Vibrations". Some hooks become popular without using any unusual elements. For example, in the song "Be My Baby", performed by The Ronettes, the hook consists of the words "be my baby" over the conventional I–vi–IV–V chord progression of the chorus. [5] Hooks in hip hop almost always refer to the chorus between verses; as in the lyrics to "Ice Ice Baby", "check out the hook, while my DJ revolves it", that leads into the chorus itself.

Use in market research

The hooks of a song may be used in market research to assist in gauging the popularity of a song based on the listener's ability to recognize the song's hook. Often radio stations conduct "call out" either on the Internet, via telephone, or a music test (either online or in an in-person setting) to conduct surveys. Stations may use the services of a professional "hook service" or prepare the materials themselves. In some studies, radio stations play the hook, typically 8–12 bars long, [6] for audiences of up to 150 participants. The participants are then asked to rate the song on a scale from "dislike very much" to "like very much". Top 40 stations typically can't wait that long for results and have participants "call out" directly, by listening and rating different hooks. [7] Studies such as these inform the radio station how popular current songs are or if the audience is "burned out" of a certain song. Market research based on hooks gives radio stations of all genres awareness of what their audience demographic wants to listen to, and is even used to test the musical boundaries of the audience. [8] Some groups even release these research hooks on a single's CD release.

Scientific research

A European consortium (including Utrecht University and the University of Amsterdam) studies the hook by using online games and the wisdom of the crowd to understand and quantify the effect of catchiness on musical memory. [9] [10]

See also

Related Research Articles

Music radio is a radio format in which music is the main broadcast content. After television replaced old time radio's dramatic content, music formats became dominant in many countries. Radio drama and comedy continue, often on public radio.

Pop music is a genre of popular music that originated in its modern form during the mid-1950s in the United States and the United Kingdom. During the 1950s and 1960s, pop music encompassed rock and roll and the youth-oriented styles it influenced. Rock and pop music remained roughly synonymous until the late 1960s, after which pop became associated with music that was more commercial, ephemeral, and accessible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melody</span> Linear succession of tones in the foreground of a musical work

A melody, also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combination of pitch and rhythm, while more figuratively, the term can include other musical elements such as tonal color. It is the foreground to the background accompaniment. A line or part need not be a foreground melody.

In music theory, the key of a piece is the group of pitches, or scale, that forms the basis of a musical composition in Western classical music, art music, and pop music.

Tonality or key: Music which uses the notes of a particular scale is said to be "in the key of" that scale or in the tonality of that scale.

Arena rock is a style of rock music that became mainstream in the 1970s. It typically involves radio-friendly rock music that was designed to be played for large audiences.

A riff is a short, repeated motif or figure in the melody or accompaniment of a musical composition. Riffs are most often found in rock music, heavy metal music, Latin, funk, and jazz, although classical music is also sometimes based on a riff, such as Ravel's Boléro. Riffs can be as simple as a tenor saxophone honking a simple, catchy rhythmic figure, or as complex as the riff-based variations in the head arrangements played by the Count Basie Orchestra.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Refrain</span> Repeated lines in music or poetry

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in poetry — the "chorus" of a song. Poetic fixed forms that feature refrains include the villanelle, the virelay, and the sestina.

In music, a radio edit, or radio mix, simply called studio audio radio editing recording version, is a modification, typically truncated or censored, intended to make a song more suitable for airplay. It may be censored for profanity, vulgarities, or subject matter; or adjusted for length, instrumentation, or form. Radio edits may also be used for commercial single release radio versions, which may be denoted as the 7″ version.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cumulative song</span> Simple song form with repetitive and linked verses

A cumulative song is a song with a simple verse structure modified by progressive addition so that each verse is longer than the verse before. Cumulative songs are popular for group singing, in part because they require relatively little memorization of lyrics, and because remembering the previous verse to concatenate it to form the current verse can become a kind of game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lick (music)</span> Stock pattern or phrase; short series of notes

In popular music genres such as country, blues, jazz or rock music, a lick is "a stock pattern or phrase" consisting of a short series of notes used in solos and melodic lines and accompaniment. For musicians, learning a lick is usually a form of imitation. By imitating, musicians understand and analyze what others have done, allowing them to build a vocabulary of their own.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thirty-two-bar form</span> Song structure

The 32-bar form, also known as the AABA song form, American popular song form and the ballad form, is a song structure commonly found in Tin Pan Alley songs and other American popular music, especially in the first half of the 20th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Melodic motion</span>

Melodic motion is the quality of movement of a melody, including nearness or farness of successive pitches or notes in a melody. This may be described as conjunct or disjunct, stepwise, skipwise or no movement, respectively. See also contrapuntal motion. In a conjunct melodic motion, the melodic phrase moves in a stepwise fashion; that is the subsequent notes move up or down a semitone or tone, but no greater. In a disjunct melodic motion, the melodic phrase leaps upwards or downwards; this movement is greater than a whole tone. In popular Western music, a melodic leap of disjunct motion is often present in the chorus of a song, to distinguish it from the verses and captivate the audience.

Song structure is the arrangement of a song, and is a part of the songwriting process. It is typically sectional, which uses repeating forms in songs. Common piece-level musical forms for vocal music include bar form, 32-bar form, verse–chorus form, ternary form, strophic form, and the 12-bar blues. Popular music songs traditionally use the same music for each verse or stanza of lyrics. Pop and traditional forms can be used even with songs that have structural differences in melodies. The most common format in modern popular music is introduction (intro), verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, bridge, and chorus. In rock music styles, notably heavy metal music, there is usually one or more guitar solos in the song, often found after the middle chorus part. In pop music, there may be a guitar solo, or a solo performed with another instrument such as a synthesizer or a saxophone.

Pop rap is a genre of music fusing the rhythm-based lyricism of hip-hop music with pop music's preference for melodious vocals and catchy tunes emphasizing on pop like productions and structure. The lyrics are often positive, with choruses similar to those heard in pop music. This genre gained mainstream popularity during the 1990s, though the influences and roots of pop rap can trace back to late-1980s hip-hop artists such as Run-DMC, LL Cool J, and Beastie Boys.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Repetition (music)</span> In music, the repeated use of a sound or sequence

Repetition is important in music, where sounds or sequences are often repeated. It may be called restatement, such as the restatement of a theme. While it plays a role in all music, with noise and musical tones lying along a spectrum from irregular to periodic sounds, it is especially prominent in specific styles.

Adult contemporary music (AC) is a form of radio-played popular music, ranging from 1960s vocal and 1970s soft rock music to predominantly ballad-heavy music of the 1980s to the present day, with varying degrees of easy listening, pop, soul, R&B, quiet storm and rock influence. Adult contemporary is generally a continuation of the easy listening and soft rock style that became popular in the 1960s and 1970s with some adjustments that reflect the evolution of pop/rock music.

Sean-nós singing is unaccompanied, traditional Irish vocal music usually performed in the Irish language. Sean-nós singing usually involves very long melodic phrases with highly ornamented and melismatic melodic lines, differing greatly from traditional folk singing elsewhere in Ireland, although there is significant regional variation within Ireland. Sean-nós songs cover a range of genres, from love song to lament to lullaby, traditionally with a strong focus on conveying the relevant emotion of the given song. The term sean-nós, which simply means "in the old way", is a vague term that can also refer to various other traditional activities, musical and non-musical.

Catchiness is how easy it is for a song, tune, or phrase to be recalled. It is often taken into account when writing songs, catchphrases, advertising slogans, jingles etc. Alternatively, it can be defined as how difficult it is for one to forget it. Songs that embody high levels of remembrance or catchiness are literally known as "catchy songs" or "earworms". While it is hard to scientifically explain what makes a song catchy, there are many documented techniques that recur throughout catchy music, such as repetition, hooks and alliteration. Selling Sounds: The Commercial Revolution in American Music says that "although there was no definition for what made a song catchy, all the songwriting guides agreed that simplicity and familiarity were vital".

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A producer tag is the element of a song, typically at the beginning of it, inserted there by the song's producer – a short sound meant to familiarize the listener with who is responsible for the production of the song. Most notably prevalent in hip hop music, producer tags became popular during the 2000s, and were first used as a way for producers to identify themselves on songs, or "sign" the instrumental they made as protection against someone stealing the beat. They experienced a massive rise in popularity during the late 2000s and early 2010s with the rise of the trap subgenre of hip hop.

References

  1. ↑ Covach, John (2005). "Form in Rock Music: A Primer". In Stein, Deborah (ed.). Engaging Music: Essays in Music Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 71. ISBN   0-19-517010-5.
  2. ↑ Davidson, Miriam; Heartwood, Kiya (1996). Songwriting for Beginners, p.7. Alfred Music Publishing. ISBN   0739020005.
  3. ↑ Monaco and Riordan (1980, p. 178). Cited in Burns, Gary (1987). "A Typology of 'Hooks' in Popular Records", Popular Music, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Jan. 1987), pp. 1–20
  4. ↑ Hurst and Delson 1980, p.58. Cited in Burns, Gary (1987) "A Typology of 'Hooks' in Popular Records", Popular Music, Vol. 6, No. 1. (Jan. 1987), pp. 1–20.
  5. 1 2 3 Kasha and Hirschhorn (1979), p.28–29. Cited in Gary Burns (January 1987). "A Typology of "Hooks" in Popular Records". Popular Music. 6 (1): 1–20. doi:10.1017/S0261143000006577. JSTOR   853162.
  6. ↑ Steinkoler, Jeremy. "Understanding Song Form". Archived from the original on 29 April 2014. Retrieved 21 May 2014.
  7. ↑ Cobo, Leila. "Radio Research: How Much does it Determine what Gets Played how often? Programmers Insist its Role is Valuable - and Misunderstood." Billboard: The International Newsweekly of Music, Video and Home Entertainment, vol. 114, no. 50, 2002.
  8. ↑ Dann-Beardsley, Cynthia. "Eight Seconds to Hook an Audience". Words and Music. 7. ProQuest   757538142.
  9. ↑ "#HookedOnMusic".
  10. ↑ UU, Cogitch UvA. "Hooked! App". Archived from the original on 22 May 2019. Retrieved 7 August 2014.
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