How to write a hook

The New Neo is one of my favorite blogs because she talks about a lot of things, like dance, that I don't know anything about. She is even interesting when she talks about things that she doesn't know much about, like song-writing: How to write a hook.

I started wondering how on earth someone writes a hook. Writing music is something I can’t imagine anyway, and I’m in awe of those who can do it. Even more so for those who can write a catchy hook that reels them in and makes for a hit. How, how, how do they keep their tune from being just some formless humming and meandering?

She quotes Tom Snow, composer of the Pointer Sisters' hit She's So Shy:

I had been plugging away for weeks trying to find a ‘hit’ hook. Everything I came up with sounded like derivative, melodic babble. Reduced to desperation one night I went into my studio after dinner and a few glasses of wine, set the Roland TR-808 to 120 beats per minute and started playing G minor arpeggios on my Prophet-5 synth. At least that was some viable form of music! That did the trick. Not having the pressure anymore of trying to come up with a smash hit, the vault opened up and within 30 minutes I had the melody, chord changes and a working title “She’s So Shy”.

That's pretty much exactly how it works: you keep plugging away with nothing happening for as long as it takes and then one day, the ideas just come to you. It is like musical creation is always something of an accident.

But here is why some people are good at composition and song-writing and others are not: two main reasons.

1. The professional knows when his ideas are crappy.
2. He also knows what to do with a good idea once he has one. 

Well, sure, there are lots of details, but that is basically it. If you plunk away long enough, something is going to come to mind. Then you just have to know what to do with it.