Examples of the Heart of a Song

Video Transcript

"There's a couple of examples we can talk of sort of a heart of the song or something that's recognizable about a song. In pop music writing, we call that the hook. That could be the chorus, but it could be a line like this. This is something that when I play it, I'm sure you're going to recognize it. "Signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours." Stevie Wonder's song. So that melodic line, right there, is that little melodic figure, is the hook of the song that comes back and it may have been something that he thought of before he started writing the song, before he got to "signed, sealed, delivered, I'm yours." Okay, so that's one example of a melodic line. Another example of a song that was, had sort of a rhythmic thread throughout it that was very distinguishable is, you hear this beat and then you would hear this bass part. And that's, that's the song "Thriller." Again, it's like every song has something that inspired it and to be written. A good example is, you hear, another example of what I call a fat hook is, it was a one word song that's been played throughout time. And the minute you hear this song, and the reason I call it a fat hook is because that is such an open-ended word or meaning in there, that everyone that listens to it can put their own meaning into it. This one, the minute you hear this and you feel the beat, "celebrate good times come on." The minute you hear, "celebrate" everybody can sing along with that and it allows people to put their own meaning on it. So a song like, "Celebrate" can be related to anything, which is why you hear it every Friday. So, these are examples of what I would call the hearts of the song. A more introspective songwriter like an Alanis Morissette or even a John Mayer, write songs that are a little more personal, yet there's, there is a feeling in that song that is conveyed even through the title of the song. "What a Wonderful World,? that was the title of the song and that's the melody that closes the end of it. It ends like a refrain at the end of every phrase. And you know, you know that the inspiration for that song was the concept or the thought of "what a wonderful world." A very strong hook or signature of a song that was written by the Beatles, "Norwegian Wood." The melody was sung, but it was also instrumental, so you would hear, "Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, dum, I once, da, da, isn't it good, Norwegian wood." So, when you hear that melody, you instantly have the whole feeling of the song."