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PREVIEW of SECTION 2 - The Hook

CREATIVE SONG LYRICS
Self-teaching Manual


CREATIVE SONG LYRICS
Self-teaching Manual



Self-Teaching Guide to

WRITING SONG LYRICS

By Paul Rodricks

    Have you ever felt the urge to write your own songs?
To compose your own lyrics and melody?
    Are you a lyricist wishing to set music to your lyrics?
Or a music composer desirous of writing the lyrics to
your music? 
Or a music lover and hobbyist wondering how songs are crafted?
    If so, Creative Songwriting is just the right practical
self-teaching manual for you. Because Songwriting has
never been made so easy and simple.


     Is all about Lyrics Composing – Song forms, Title/Hook lines, Storylines and Themes, Rhyme Scheme, Crafting the Verse-Chorus-Bridge-Tag, Song Performing Styles and much more.
  
     The latest in Gospel/Worship Songwriting is also presented in a whole separate chapter devoted to it in this book.
  
     Become a successful Songwriter.  Compose your own Lyrics and Music to styles such as Pop, Rock, Blues, Country, R&B, Jazz and Gospel.
Lyrics: The Composition

SECTION TWO 
(Continued)

SAMPLING

 “To seize the flying thought before it escapes us is our only  touch with reality.” –  Ellen Glasgow


The Hook

(Songs are BEST remembered by their Title/Hook Line)


So, strive to make yours a memorable one.

Your title must be a short one, up-to-date and catchy enough to grab the listener‟s attention. Through the title or hook-line, the listener comes to know what your song is about as the story is built up on the title. The listener also gets an indication from the title as to the mood and rhythm of the song, i.e. the nature of the topic (love & romance and so on) and the type/style (pop, country, ballad, rock and so forth). Therefore, your title should be clear enough and appealing to most people for the song to become popular. Also bear in mind that that lyrical mood and rhythm should match that of the melody.

Purpose & Role of the Hook

You weave lyrics around the title. A simple story line or a narrative ballad or some dark and heavy lyrical stuff that begins with the first verse, builds up in the following verses, and resolves in the last verse, and/or with some additional twist in the Bridge section of the song, fading away in the tag. The Chorus all along summarizes your story line. That‟s the gist of it. Nothing hard and fast to restrict you from the freedom of attempting and coming up with some very good song lyrics in the best manner you can.

Usually, it is the title line of your song that is the HOOK. It very much matters that this title line/Hook attracts the immediate attention of the listener as he or she may relate to it due to some previous association of similarity, or from some personal experience or just that the Hook seems to incite curiosity.

Repeating the Hook

As a general guideline, the HOOK/Title-line can be the first line of your verse or the last line and can be repeated as the first line of your following verses. The hook must definitely be repeated, preferably not less than twice in the Chorus. Sometimes, depending on the genre of the song, the whole of the chorus lyrics is a mere repetition of the hook. However, it would not be wise to over-use the hook/title line.

Here‟s an example of an 8-line Chorus from a hip-hop song, “Baby, What‟s Love if It Isn‟t You?” where the hook is repeated twice at the beginning and twice for the ending. Moreover, the central theme of the chorus is the same as the hook.

Chorus:

Oh, Baby, what's love if it isn’t you?
Tell me, Baby, what's love if it isn’t you?
Breathing a new life in me
The kind of the love I never knew
So wholesome and wonderful
What more could I ask of you?
Oh Baby, what's love if isn’t you?
Tell me, baby, what's love, if it isn’t you?

Copyright 2004 Paul Rodericks

Song Forms & Hook Lines

Some popular song-forms like AACA, use the hook as the first or last line of every verse and not at all in the chorus.

Again, in the AAA form, the hook can be any one of the verse lines, repeating for the same line in the subsequent verses or as the top line of every verse.

BABAB or ABABCB format may have the hook line in the chorus, generally the first and the last line. Given a choice, make the hook the last line of your chorus.

Some Musical Requirements of a Hook:

1. Put a catchy rhythmic melody to your hook that calls for attention

2. Your rhythmic hook melody can come in as an Intro (perhaps a four-bar riff) or as part of your instrumental opening lines to the song and/or amidst vocalization.

3. Use a chord progression that leads into your opening verse or chorus, producing some contrast with that of the latter.

4. Keeping in view the above, experiment with a few different approaches – using both instrumental and vocal variations.

Story-Form Development Questionnaire

1. What is the subject, topic or theme of your song lyrics?

2. What is the subject category, such as love & romance and themes relating to social, political, philosophical and religious aspects?

3. Who moves the story forward - the gender of the character – male or female or neuter?

4. Where, When and How does the story, incident or plot develop?

5. Are the stages of story-development properly distributed in the verses and linked to the summary in the Chorus?

6. Is the time sequence properly maintained in all the sections and is clear to the listener?

7. Do the lyrics contain dialogue and is the speech form properly maintained, including the genders in all the sections of the songs?

8. Is there any interesting part of the theme that you may have overlooked or not fully developed?

9. Does the theme have a universal appeal or limited to a specific area or audience?

***



NEXT: Section 3
"The best way to get a good idea is to get a lot of ideas.”
- Linus Pauling.

 Whence the Topic or Main Theme?

Do not miss out the next interesting component of Songwriting.

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 Paul Rodricks, Author & Freelance Writer


Blog: www.paulswritersdig7.blogspot.com