How to Create a Catchy Chorus When Writing a Song

Song writing really allows the writer to express their thoughts and ideas in a beautiful way. Naturally, when writing a song you want it to "catch on" and become well known. The title of the song is very important and should serve to describe the content. Good lyrics that rhyme and tell the story, having a beginning, middle and end are crucial, and naturally good music that the listener will enjoy, goes without saying. What is equally important, and what this article is all about, is the Chorus Lines or "Hook," which is critical to making a song catchy and memorable. This is the part of the song that people will usually remember first, and if you are fortunate will sing along with.

Things You'll Need

• Your basic song lyrics, a melody and a good title. In some cases, writers will often come up with the hook first and build the song around that. Maybe you will be starting there too!

Instructions

1. The hook or chorus lines should depict what the song is about. Sometimes the hook will even duplicate the title of the song. Take the Elvis Presley song, "I can't help falling in love with you." The title is also used in the chorus. This was a huge hit!

2. The melody for the hook should blend with the rest of the song so it doesn't sound like two different songs once the melody is changed over for the chorus or hook lines. But there should be a change. Usually an upbeat or brighter notes will work well in brining attention to this important part of your song. Additional energy should be installed here.

3. The amount of beats or syllables should be consistent with the previous and proceeding beats. In others words, if you just came out of 10 syllables or beats for your last lyric line, you don't want the number of beats for your hook to be much longer or shorter than that. You want to gain attention here, but you also want to stay within a flow.

4. Your hook or chorus should rhyme and make sense. Words that tell the whole story in very few words. It is okay to run two parts or sentences also, one directly after the other. An example may be, "I thought I had a lover and a Friend, Till I found out all you did was pretend." This hook tells a quick story that rhymes. In this example both parts have 10 syllables.

5. The hook should be easy to sing along with, and ideally in a middle key or note, so that anyone can sing with it, and at least be close to being on key!

6. The hook should be one that anyone would not be ashamed to sing along with out loud. When writing a song you want it to appeal to the greatest number of people, thus, your hook line should be as universal as possible. When reaching both males and females for instance, you may not want your hook to be something like, "you say I'm a tough guy, and I just don't know why." Would a woman want to sing along with this hook? Of course when a writer wants to reach a specific group, the hook should be aimed at that target audience.

Tips & Warnings

• Always be original and use your own lyrics.

• The hook should depict what the song is about.

• The hook should be one that anyone, or your target audience, would "want" to sing along with, even if just in their heads.

• Use your hook as often as possible, but don't over do it.

• The hook should be a phrase that is catchy, flows, rhymes and it easy to remember.