What Is Hook Theory?

What is Hook Theory and why is it a good tool to use? I heard about it after watching KSHMR on YouTube, he recommended it as a good learning tool to understand melodies and chords. Why use it? We know that a track is based on a key and scale. And the chords depend on the scale and the melodies depends on the chord progressions. And without a good foundation of music structure and theory, we cannot create something remarkable as an aspiring music producer. Hook Theory provides you with the tools and resources you need to understand music structure and theory.

Hook Theory

The website has many useful resources for music lovers everywhere to use when they want to analyze their favorite songs. We can learn a lot from our favorite songs, the ones you remember and have an emotion connection to. If we take some time looking at their musical structure, we can learn what makes a track sound good. Lucky for us, the creators of Hook Theory created a books series called HOOK THEORY 1 AND HOOK THEORY 2.

What will you learn in this series? You will understand how to analyze chords and melodies, which are the building blocks of a music structure. Remember you need a good understanding of the fundamentals before you can master any skills. I went through the book series and highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn about music production like I do.

Here are some of the learning from the series that I would like to remember and have a place to reference them.

Superscript/Subscript	Description
None	Basic chord in root position.
$^{6}$	Basic chord in first inversion.
$^{6}_{4}$	Basic chord in second inversion.
$^{7}$	Seventh chord in root position.
$^{6}_{5}$	Seventh chord in first inversion.
$^{4}_{3}$	Seventh chord in second inversion.
$^{4}_{2}$	Seventh chord in third inversion.

• The way a note is used in a song is determined by its position in the scale.
• The particular major scale that a song happens to use doesn't matter.
• Beat 1 & 3 are consider strong while beat 2 & 4 are consider weak.
• Notes in the melody that are played on strong beats are more important than notes played on weak beats.
• Note that falls between beats are even less important.
• A note's position in a measure affects how much importance it has.
• Scale degrees in the melody that coincide with the underlying harmony are called stable scale degrees.
• Unstable scale degrees refer to the scale degrees that are not contained in the underlying harmony.
• When unstable notes are used on weak beats to link two stable scale degrees together, they are called passing notes.
• When an unstable scale degree appears on a strong beat at some point the melodic line should resolve to the nearest stable scale degree, above or below.
• When the lowest note or bass note is not the root of the chord, we say that the chord is in an inversion.
• Any time you use a chord that has a function relative to a different home base, you are using what is called a secondary chord.
• Secondary chords often create tension that begs for a resolution to a chord that is in the scale.
• A general rule of thumb is that sharped scale degrees have a natural tendency to resolve upward to the nearest scale degree, whereas flatted scale degrees like to resolve downward to the nearest scale degree.
• The bass note is the most important note in the chord.
• The more unique scale degrees a chord has, the more complex and dissonant it sounds.
• Song energy is a complex mixture of tempo, volume, instrumentation, and harmony.
• Cadences that trick the listener by going to an unexpected chord are known as deceptive cadences.
• Chord substituted in this way are known as borrowed chords, and the practice of using them is known as modal mixture since you are mixing chords from two or more different modes in the same progression.
• The most important chords have been the $\textrm {I}$, $\textrm {IV}$, and $\textrm {V}$ chords, the $\textrm {I}$ chord being home base, the $\textrm {V}$ chord setting up cadences, and the $\textrm {IV}$ playing the versatile role of pre-cadence chord, cadence chord, and bridge between $\textrm {I}$ and other chords in the progression.
• Mode are limited in their ability to change the feel of a song, as we've learned, they don't actually introduce any new chords.
• Every mode uses the same set of chords from the major scale, just in different contexts and with a different chord as the home base.