(smooth electronic music) - Welcome to the class, we're
doing a class on hooks today. We'll just talk a little bit
it first, so I just wanna get, my name's Neil Diercks,
you can find my info in the program, I teach
for Berklee Online, and live here in Los Angeles,
but I went to Berklee and had a long relationship with them. I teach some of their
online songwriting courses, which I highly recommend you check out. They're amazing, I think
there's nothing like it on the planet, I'm a little biased, but. (audience laughter) I think you will be, too. I'll have you give some testimonials, I have some people here
from the classes, yeah, so. They've been in 'em,
so they're really good. We've got a number of new
courses coming out, too. There's a lot of songwriting
courses I've got, one on co-writing, as
well, that's coming up there's also some production songwriting. Melody, harmony and hits,
and a whole lot of things you can check out, but this
is also gonna be included in something, so I'm gonna
do a little combination of co-writing and, but focusing on hooks, 'cause it seems to be a popular topic. So, first off, I wanna
say, any, I just wanna get from the audience, some thoughts on like, what do you think of, when
you hear the word, hook, for a song, anybody? All right, don't be shy. - [Voiceover] Catchy,
and (mumbles off mic). - Chorus (mumbles). - [Voiceover] Something that's repeated. - Very nice, what was that? - [Voiceover] Something that's repeated. - What was that? (audience laughter) Say it again (laughs). That's good. (mumbles) - [Voiceover] It hooks you to the song. - Yeah. - [Voiceover] Memorable. - Memorable. - [Voiceover] It's an earworm. - Earworm, yeah. - [Voiceover] Interesting. - Interesting, oh yeah. - [Voiceover] I think it
has to do with the theme. - [Voiceover] Addictive. - Addictive, yes, I have that personality. (audience laughter) - [Voiceover] Groove, good groove. - Nice, nice, nice, nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Okay. - [Voiceover] Makes the song work. - Yeah, so, we'll look
at, yeah, absolutely. What have we got? We're gonna get into
some why, too, on that. Yeah, I mean, everything's correct. So, one thing on hooks,
I like to talk about is they're, in my opinion,
there's lots of hooks in a song, and I think
one of the difficulties when people are referring
to hook, a lot of times, people refer to different
things in a song. Because there's, so I'm trying to like, a feeble attempt at
standardizing the language, which, so that Berklee does really well, so ultimately when the
hooks course comes out, we'll have some names that,
hopefully, people will take on. Because you talk to one
person, and the hook can be just a lyric title, which is an element, it can be sometimes, it's a melody, sometimes it's an instrumental piece, sometimes it's a guitar riff, so really, when you outline a song or look at a song, almost, like how many
of you, well, maybe you don't want to admit to
this, but back in the day, when I was young, you
had like these charts, like they had the human body,
if you had biology class, and like, they had those
little plastic pages that were like see-through,
like you could peel off the layer of the dude
and it would be like, there would be the skin,
and then there'd be like the muscle structure,
and the thing, like that, and you know, just, we'll stop there. And, but, the, I think
in a song, sort of, like, the same way, like if
you look at it, you can, you can look at all these different parts, because like, take a song,
think of, well, I'll just use some simple examples,
like think of a song, like everybody knows the song,
Aerosmith's Walk This Way. So you have a riff playing,
right, I don't even have to play the song and you're
already hearing it in your head. You know, you know that
riff, like, right from the beginning, so that
is a hook, right there. You also, if you listen
to like, think of like, Justin Bieber's song, Love Yourself. Like, think of the trumpet solo in that, and that's really like a
bridge, but that's a hook. So, I mean, those are two
kind of different things, those are both instrumental, and they're two different things. You know, take like if
somebody said, chorus. You know, a chorus melody
that you sing over and over. Absolutely a hook, so all
these things are different, so we wanna break them down
into what I think is helpful is knowing that they, we need
multiple elements in a song. Like every song has multiple hooks. Lyric element can be a hook, you know, "I can't feel my face when I'm with you." You know, I don't even,
somebody says that to me, that falls into my thinking
of a lyric category hook. So it has impact. To me, you guys were all
hitting on different things, rhythm, et cetera, melody, sing along. And I wanna go, we'll do this first. I wanna go one layer deeper, I'll do this. This is part of the surprise for you guys. I'm gonna do this, something, I gotta, here's our first shirt giveaway. This is just like the rock concerts. I don't have the launcher, but
we're gonna give this away. So this is like the theme of this. Create Music. So, what are we, and you guys
might not be able to answer. I might have to disclude both of you, 'cause you guys have heard
some of this (laughs) before. But, so we're creating music. But it's like, what else are we creating? So why, why does it matter? And this is like the
key, it's sort of simple, it's tricky, and you're gonna hate me, but I'm gonna, but there's a whole reason, 'cause this really gets to the
whole point of the lecture. What are we creating, beyond music? I mean, there's music-- - [Voiceover] Creating a connection. - Creating, that's it, that's
good, that's really good. - [Voiceover] Emotion. (laughing) There you go. Usually it takes people longer. - [Voiceover] Yeah, it was like-- - Emotion, and it's
really close, connection, which I believe that is
there, and I'll talk about, which I think is like slightly
more of the cerebral way but yes, and that's the biggest thing. Like, I've, many of
you've heard me say this. I have a good friend of
mine, really talented writer, and he always says, "Neil,
we're not writing songs, "we're writing emotion,"
and that's what we're doing. Because you can write all you want, and I think sometimes
when we get, especially as I work at a music
college, and I've studied all this background and
stuff, we have to remember at the end of the day,
that's what we're creating. 'Cause nobody will care, otherwise. We're creating an emotion to feel. And so we can learn the tools, and the tools are allowing us
to connect with our audience, communicate with our
audience, but ultimately, to create an emotion. And so the emotion comes
from us, into them. And so, we're basically, our
idea is to make them feel what we're feeling, like
in a way, we're pouring out our hearts, but we're also sort
of like master manipulators of emotion, or like, we're
like the opposite of an empath. We're like, causing you to feel. I don't know if there's
word for that, something. Psychopath (laughs). (audience laughter) But there's, that's your whole point. So, thinking about that,
like what, let's go to, let's, you guys are trying
to, I'm having to do the condensed version of,
I'm trying to do the whole 12-week course in about 55 minutes. But, we'll try to cover it all. So, what are we needing to create that. Like, let's talk about,
we'll go, let's step back. So emotion is the end game. The emotion is the end
game for somebody to feel. Like, what do we need
to step back and like, we've got some music creating
that emotion, in theory. Now, what part of that, what
in the music is gonna help create the emotion? - [Voiceover] Motion. - Motion is gonna create the emotion. That's cool, any other,
like, what else in the music do you think is gonna
help elicit that emotion? - [Voiceover] Harmony. - Harmony, yeah, yeah, yeah. - [Voiceover] Delivery. - Delivery, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - [Voiceover] The lyric. - Lyric, yes. - [Voiceover] Chords. - Chords, yes. - [Voiceover] Contrast. - Contrast, yes, yes, yes. - [Voiceover] Melody. - Yes, you're gettin' close
to something (mumbles). Yes! - [Voiceover] Also, with a
strong intention in the song. - Strong intention, yeah, strong. And can you describe that,
like, what would strong intention look like? - [Voiceover] Almost like a
mission statement for the song? - Mm, cool. - [Voiceover] What you're trying to-- - Yeah, I would say if it's compelling. Yeah, 'cause it'd go from
here before you go to here. In my opinion, this is
(coughs) because yeah. As long as it's like... It has to be felt here and
we're gonna go farther than this but it has to be felt here
before it's felt here. Like a good lyric, like, the emotion will always
trump the cerebral, so. The cerebral will keep you there, but if you don't hit
here, before you get here, it won't work, so when
you're writing like this. I like your mission statement idea, 'cause it's very, like it's concise. But like, you know how
you could read one on a, like you go to a, a lot of
businesses have a mission statement, and you're
like, you could read one, you're like, "Yes, I wanna
work for this company!" You know, it's like, I
think like, Trader Joe's has a mission statement that
like the very first thing says, Integrity, we believe
we will move with integrity in everything we do, and you're like, "Yeah, damn, that's awesome," as you put money back in the till. You know, right, but, so that's inspiring. You read other ones, and it's,
"Our job is to fulfill more "business goals of our
customers and compliance "with all," that you know,
dead, dead in the water. So, that's important, we
have to think about that. What else, what else, any other-- - [Voiceover] Melody. - Melody, yeah, yeah, yeah. - [Voiceover] Highs and lows. - Highs and lows, yes. We all have lows (laughs). That's the song, right there. - [Voiceover] Intention and resolution. - Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. - [Voiceover] (mumbles)
Strong, like for me, when I'm writing, when I
think of the wire, right, I think about the opening
chord, and it sounds like a really upbeat pop song
that you could listen to when you're walking
down the street one day, and then you hear the pain in the words. Put me at the opening, strong
with it, with the song. - Nice, yeah, I agree. Yeah, you set the mood from the beginning. We're gonna hit on a
number of these things. If we can cover them all
in this amount of time. But yeah, there's a great
thing, or just a great, cool mentor of mine years ago told me. And he said like the, it was
when I was living in Nashville, he said the two most, and this
relates on the musical level and you could, just extrapolate on this, but just the concept. He said, "Neil, two most
important lines in the song "first line of the first verse or "the first line of the chorus." But expand that into music,
'cause it's not just the lyric side, like, I remember
being X amount of years old, when like I heard the Joshua Tree record. Anybody remember when that came out? It's like nobody, like
Bono hadn't even sung yet. And I was in the song, it's like you said, it's like playing on, a little
jangly guitar by The Edge. And I was like, I'm not going
to school today, you know? (audience laughter). I didn't quite make it there,
we're going back to listen. So it's amazing, so yeah,
that's a really important part, impact, immediate impact,
and that's instrumental, and it can be lyrics. So like, one thing, just to think about, the first thing you do, and
think of carry the first thing you do into every section of your song, the first chord you play,
the first note that plays, and imagine, okay, here's my first verse, here's the first thing that
I do, here's my beginning, my first chorus, every
point in your song is like, a place to do something of impact, and you have to decide
what layers are impact, because each transition between a song needs some sort of impact. But keep, going, we have,
something close on beat, you mentioned beat, and
I wanna hit on something. Anybody else thinking anything else? - [Voiceover] Rhythm? - Yeah, like a good, you guys kind of, this is like another-- - [Voiceover] Tempo? - Yeah, it could, what is that? We got beat, rhythm. (audience speaking off microphone) - Yeah, yeah, I need 400 shirts. (laughs) No, so, think about this, this is the, ultimately, and I'll just
sidestep here for a minute. When you're writing hooks,
there are as many ways to write, and there's
many hooks you can create. So, if anybody tells you,
well actually, anything in a song, if anybody tells you, "Well, the way to write a song is this," it's like, no, it's the
one way to write a song, just remember what, and sometimes people don't really forget, it doesn't translate, because there's a million
ways to write a song. And at the end of the day,
the goal is all the same, but you can get there, I
mean, these sound silly, but it's like, it's just
going to a destination, and you, but there's a lot of
roads that will lead there. Some people start with a
lyric, like what was the song at the, the Brett James
tune and they talked about, they started with a lyric. Other people start with a beat. Other people start with a riff. So it's like, realize there's
multiple, multiple ways to do this, so we're gonna
look at some of them. We can't cover them all,
so realize there's a number of things to begin with,
so they're all valid. But what I wanna do today is
start, at least begin with one element, so the element of the groove. Because in my opinion, and
again, this is not the only way I will create with a groove,
my opinion, the groove is the most base element
in a song, because like, you notice you can hear drums in a song, you can hear rhythm in a
song, and it moves you. Before anything else, it's
like, and if you kind of like study musicology, it's the
most fundamental element. And it literally vibrates
your body and, in the, what I call the lower-archy,
there's a higher-archy, to think, but if you like are
into like chakras and stuff, where does stuff start, I
mean, it starts down here, and as we get enlightened,
but it's a process. You don't start at being enlightened, and be like, "Now I'm
gonna get real base." You know, it doesn't work that way. So, you know (laughs). Fortunately, or
unfortunately, I don't know. But, so, my point is, what
is effective for some writers and what's a very effective
way is to start with rhythm. Starting with a groove,
and creating the groove. 'Cause the groove tells
you something, like, you can play a groove,
and you can play drums, you know, a drum loop, like
if you guys listen to drums, and it's like, it automatically,
you have a feeling. It has a personality, and you can write, you can build a song there,
and I find this is one of the most effective
ways, and from there, you're gonna layer all
the other hooks on there. So what I wanna play
with is like the idea of selecting, breaking that down, selecting some kind of
tempo, and then building and we're gonna start adding
in some other elements. So I wanna do this like,
we're a little limited because we're filming
here, but I wanna work on, we're gonna do this a bit interactive, so you guys are gonna not, if it was my preference, you'd
all get out of your chairs, but you will, in a minute. But you can't really
move everything too much. So we're gonna start,
but we're gonna do this in a kind of collaborative way. So, can somebody, like, I
want somebody to sort of, and do, I want you, oh, you're
taking notes, I'm sorry. I was gonna say, no I was
gonna say, we're gonna throw, here, the other part
of this I want you to do, is like this very organic thing. Because in today's
environment, like, we kind of get caught into the in the
box work, which is great, absolutely super tool for
creating, and as I said before, what I'm gonna show you is one way. But it's a really nice
way, because like you can create hooks and all that
stuff, like on the bus. You know, so, and you don't
need anything around you. And I think those are
kind of the most organic. So, we're gonna, can I get
a vote, we're gonna have somebody like, we're gonna create a tempo, and then we're gonna
look at a few elements, and we're gonna start piecing
up a little song there. So I want somebody to
give me just the tempo. Like, just a, like boom, chick-a, boom. I don't care what it is, but. What? Yeah, up-tempo, sexy tempo, what is it? And then tell me, let's
talk about what it is. And we're gonna, but I want
you to just clap it out. Just give me, somebody, somebody. Where's our musicians, your performers. (clapping) Everybody. Now, do we like it? This is the question we're gonna ask, like remember, at the
end of the day, (mumbles) do you like it? And if not, we're gonna to it in a-- - [Voiceover] Too fast. - Too fast. - [Voiceover] Too fast? - [Voiceover] Too slow! (laughs) (audience talking at once) - [Voiceover] I think it's too fast. - [Voiceover] Too slow! (clapping) - [Voiceover] Too loud! (laughing) - Sound like my mom! So what is it, like now,
let's get some feelings on like, okay, yeah, that's good. Yeah, okay, just keep it goin', somebody's gotta sustain
this, for a little while. Okay, so we've got a basic tempo. (clapping) Speaking of the little (mumbles). All right. We can click, we can fix it later. (audience laughter) Yeah, the, but. Okay, next, now, now. Now we're losing a little energy. They took the coffee away from the back. No, you gotta get into it, okay. All right, now let's
get, what is this like? What can you feel at this emotion? Or at this level, what kind
of emotions do we feel? - [Voiceover] Slow. (clapping drowns out audience suggestions) - Sounds what? - [Voiceover] Droning. - Droning. We'll get some groove in there, I mean, we kinda just have the click track. Or the clap track. - [Voiceover] Lazy, it's lazy. - [Voiceover] With a guitar on it. - [Voiceover] Swing. - Got some swing on it, yeah. (clapping) - Yeah, so now we're getting personality. - [Voiceover] All right. - So we have the second hearing who. Right, okay, now, so
what's this feeling like? What's this feeling like? - [Voiceover] Nice. (clapping) - Give me some words, just some words, not a lyric, I just wanna know-- - [Voiceover] My guitar! - A what? - [Voiceover] Like a tone. - Regular tone, okay, okay. Now what I want you to do, okay, we're gonna think about,
let's cut it for one second. Just keep that in your head. We're gonna come back to it. So we're gonna have a
basic feel like this, and I want you guys to
start playing that again. Now, we're gonna work on, we're gonna work on a melody, but we're gonna work on a melody in a way that you may not have worked on it before. 'Cause what do you think about
when you think about melody? - [Voiceover] Combination of notes. - Combination of notes. (audience giggles) Combination, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. - [Voiceover] Scale. - Good, scale, okay. - [Voiceover] Thoughts and words. - Okay. - [Voiceover] That girl lied to me. - Who said that, who said that? Who said, t-shirt! (laughs) I'm gonna run outa these. If it doesn't fit, trade
it with somebody else. (audience laughter) Yeah, okay. Let's think, we always
think pitch with melody. Which is very important. But to me, in the hierarchy,
pitch is secondary in your element of melody. 'Cause think of any melody you sing, and one of the things I
find the most overlooked, like I've been on panels
with songs coming in, or I used to work at
Warner Brothers, where we'd screen songs, and we'd
listen, and I feel one of the biggest things was that when a song felt like okay, when you're
like, wow that song's okay. You know, first of all you
were like, no big emotion, but like, you could hear
something, but it was very often that like
the rhythm of the melody kind of was boring, it
was just like not that, and boring is like, I
guess, sort of subjective, but it was like not necessar,
it was not memorable. And it gave me nothing. And so, that, if you listen to, I think one of the most important
things you guys can work on in your melodies, is creating
rhythms for your melody, and almost like, by, and a cool exercise is to take away the element
of pitch from your melody. Bless you. Bless you. That's our new groove. (audience laughter) That's... It's a spiritual song called, Bless You. It's amazing. Saw her bowing her head. So, but think about the, as you go, like as you go home today, or
your listening to something, I want you to do this, take
an analysis of the groove. Sing melodies without pitch, like a robot. Just take them, bah, bah, bahbah. And you will find your melodies
are a lot more interesting than you think. But I'll give you a trick for, you will, you can create really
good melodic melodies if you focus on your rhythm first. So, what we're gonna
do, is we're gonna sing almost similar to what you began, as you began enhancing the groove. What we're gonna do is, we're gonna sing a monotone melody, over our groove. So we're gonna take like, let's take, let's make it, let's do this. And this is another easy, just take, we'll take two measures. So, we'll be in four-four,
we'll take two measures. And we're gonna create a melody, and some of this stuff
you can just play with. And listen, let's say
we're gonna create a melody that's probably gonna
last, we want a little, and somebody said, I don't
know, did somebody say, okay, we had rhythm,
was there anything else to melody that, somebody, I don't know if somebody said that-- - [Voiceover] Fluctuation? - Fluctuation, yeah,
that's very good, yeah. - [Voiceover] Chord progression. - Okay, yeah, even before we get to that. - [Voiceover] Phrasing. - Phrasing, yeah, which touches on... - [Voiceover] Intervals. - Yeah. - [Voiceover] Chords? - [Voiceover] Keeps in mix. - That's pretty good, yeah. I only have so many t-shirts. Yeah, I know, it is an important factor. It is an important factor. - [Voiceover] Creating (mumbles) loop? - What? (audience speaking
suggestions off microphone) - [Voiceover] Train of thought. - Train of thought, oh yeah, okay. (mumbles) Okay, I'm going for
something, and those are all totally valid, I'm-- - [Voiceover] Feel? - Yeah. - [Voiceover] Climax? Yeah, that is important, yes. That will be in our bigger picture. But I'm going really basic, we're moving up from the, is
the actual lack of anything. Space, rest. Which is really important,
which is often not thought of. Because, the neat thing about, if we think about this in melody, one of the most common
things, notice in songs, notice whenever there's melodic rest, there's something usually
else happening in the song. Usually some kind of instrumental hook. So, by having your hook not do anything, creates a place for another hook. And that's why you wanna start thinking on this multi-layers of hooks. So, we want some rest, and the other rest, we're gonna look at filling that. So, we're gonna do a couple
different types of hooks. So, let's take, let's do this. We're gonna take a two-measure, we're gonna like go back to our beat, our loop, our human loop,
and we're gonna go sing that and we're gonna go for
two measures and repeat. And then I want somebody to come up, or people just start chiming
in, and we can play around. We're gonna just sing
something super simple. And this is the one element,
again, one way of making hooks. There's the super complex side of it, which is you can learn as
well, and very important, but one element is that, like... My friend said it, "So simple,
a six-year-old can sing it." There's a lot of Ss in there,
so you should remember that. But it should be so
simple, so think about, I'm teaching somebody a,
and this is, we don't have any pitch, so all we're
gonna do, imagine like, you're a kid, like with a
mallet, bah, bah, bahbah. You know, I mean, something
almost that simple. And when you go and do
this exercise tonight, if you do it, and go listen
to a bunch of hit songs, and like take away the pitch element, and listen to those
rhythms, many of them on, in prominent places will
be very, very simple. We'll have a time for complexity later. But, so let's get our groove going again. I want you guys to play,
and we'll play with a couple of options, but think of that, something simple, and maybe we'll do, can people, people can
jump out one at a time, and let's do this, since we're gonna do it for two, think of,
we're gonna do, sing it, somebody will, this will
be like a little mini-jam. So we're gonna have, we're
gonna get the groove going. We're just gonna sing that, and then, people jump in, sing
your two measure phrase. Make sure there's some rest in there, we want that rest ahead of time. People actually think of this
stuff when they're writing. It is odd. And then, what we're
all gonna do as a group, after that person sings that, sings it, and no pitch, I mean, monotone,
you're gonna sing pitch, obviously, but no actual melody. You're gonna sing that,
and then we're gonna all sing it back to the person to see how effective and like see how, and that's kind of a factor. If we can sing it right
back, and you're also gonna, by singing it back, you're
gonna feel whether it feels good or not, so, like, depending
on how little or how much you enjoy it, we're gonna kind
of move on to more things. So, okay, so, somebody
wanna pick up that groove? (clapping) So I'll count off another four, and then the first person start in. Give us two measures, start anywhere in the measure you want. So we'll go one, two, three, four. ♫ Bah, bah da bah ♫ Bah bah, bah da bah ♫ - Okay, now we're gonna do, we're gonna, you wanna sing that one more time for us? And then we'll-- - [Voiceover] Bah da ba? - Yeah, one, two, three, four. ♫ Bah bah, bah da bah ♫ Bah bah, bah da bah bah ♫ (clapping) - All right, everybody back. - One, two, three, four. ♫ Bah bah, bah da bah ♫ Bah bah, bah da bah bah ♫ - It's pretty, okay, let's keep going. Another one, let's get
another one, somebody. (clapping) ♫ Bum ba ba bum ♫ Bum baba badum ♫ Bum ba ba bum ♫ Bum baba badum ♫ Bum ba ba bum ♫ Bum baba badum ♫ Bum ba ba bum ♫ Bum baba badum ♫ Bum ba ba bum ♫ Bum baba badum ♫ Bum ba ba bum ♫ Bum baba badum ♫ Bum ba ba bum ♫ Bum baba badum ♫ Bum ba ba bum ♫ Bum baba badum ♫ Bum ba ba bum ♫ Bum baba badum ♫ - Okay, cool, that one picked up fast. Okay, let's do another one. (clapping) Four. One, two, three, four. ♫ Bum bah, bah ♫ Bum bah, bah ♫ Bum bah, bah ♫ Bum bah, bah ♫ - Remember, like, try to
eliminate pitch for a minute. Like, just a bah, bah, bah. Bah, bah, bah. Bah, bah, bah. Bah, bah, bah. Bah, bah, bah. All right, let's move on one more. (clapping) Two. Can you sing a little
louder, so they can hear? - [Voiceover] Bah, bah bah. Bah, bah bah. - [Neil And Voiceover] Bah, bah bah. Bah, bah bah. - [All] Bah, bah bah. Bah, bah bah. Bah, bah bah. Bah, bah bah. Bah, bah bah. Bah, bah bah. - All right, we'll go one more, one more. - [Voiceover] Okay, bah bah baba baba. Bah bah baba baba. - [Neil And Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. Bah bah baba baba. - [All] Bah bah baba baba. Bah bah baba baba. Bah bah baba baba. Bah bah baba baba. - Okay, keep going, keep the beat going. All right, now, anybody
pitch some favorites. Somebody pitch, for America to vote for their favorite groove. (laughs) Somebody sing one, sing it-- - [Voiceover] First and last? - What? - [Voiceover] First and last? - First one, to vote for your groove. (laughs) This is a non-texting event. Is you gotta sing it back. So you cast your vote with your groove. - [Voiceover] Do both of 'em. - You're saying, I want you to, well, you can sing 'em both,
and then you gotta sing, you can do the battleground. You can do battleground (laughs), but you gotta tell us which one wins. - [Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. (clapping) Bah bah baba baba. - Okay. Now. - [All] Bah bah baba baba. Bah bah baba baba. - Okay, now-- - [All] Bah bah baba baba. Bah bah baba baba. - Now the last one. - [Voiceover] I didn't cast any votes. (audience laughter) - Voting's closed. (laughing) Okay, anybody else have one? No, just, I'm doing this
as a little exaggeration. But just to prove a point. - [Voiceover] I liked the (mumbles). - Last one, okay, sing
it, again, you have to. - [Voiceover] Bah, bah bah. - Okay, now, we're gonna
have the final battleground. Okay let's go, like,
now you start singing. We gotta bring the beat back, we're gonna. (clapping) - [Voiceover] Bah, bah bah. Bah, bah bah. Bah, bah bah. - [All] Bah, bah bah. - Okay, now we're gonna
do 'em both in a round. ♫ Bah, bah bah
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - Keep going (laughs). ♫ Bah, bah bah
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - Okay, cool, I like that one better. That one, I like that one. - [Voiceover] Combination of the two. - That one. That was two. I mean, isn't a little,
it's like et-a-bow. Let's do it again, and this
is, we'll bring up a point. This is experiential learning, guys. So let's start it again, let's sing it. Now we have. (clapping) ♫ Bah, bah bah
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - [Voiceover] Do you want 'em together? - Both, now they're both together. ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - Now, second one. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - Yeah, we want 'em both, so one. ♫ Bah, bah bah
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫
♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - We got a lot, we're
close, getting close. - [Voiceover] First
one, and then the other. - Yeah, exactly, we're doing 'em both. I want you to hear 'em together. 'Cause that's what, yeah, yeah. No, I actually want you
to sing them together. Well, we could, okay, let's do it. - [Voiceover] Once side-- - Okay, you guys, yeah. You guys take bah bah baba baba. And you guys do bah, bah bah. (laughing) - [Voiceover] Okay, let's do it. - All right, two, three, four. (clapping) - [Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. Bah bah baba baba. - No, you guys gotta
give them room (laughs). - [Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. (audience member speaking off microphone) - Yeah, yeah, you guys, once, hold on. (audience member speaking off microphone) Yeah, well, that gets
into the next lecture. But yeah, you do it. - [Voiceover] Sequentially. - Yeah, so, okay. - [Voiceover] So, our
one and then your one. - Yeah, you guys sing, and
then move on over here. And they'll sing, and
then they'll move back. Yeah, so we're gonna
hambone back and forth. - [Voiceover] Yes. - So, somebody wanna start the groove? One, two, three, four. - [Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. (clapping) - [Voiceover] Bah bah. - [Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. (audience laughing) - [Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. (clapping) Bah bah baba baba. - Keep going, baba baba. - [Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. Bah bah. - Bah (laughs). You're gonna him singing,
you guys gotta get, bah. - [Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. - Bah, bah bah. - [Voiceover] Here we go. Bah bah baba baba. - [Voiceover] Bah, bah bah. - All right, you're gonna keep it. - [Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. - [Voiceover] Bah, bah bah. - Yeah. - [Voiceover] Bah bah baba baba. - [Voiceover] Bah, bah bah. - Okay, (laughs) two more
times, we'll lock it in. Okay, what you guys just did is like, here's really (mumbles),
now, all of the sudden, you went from two simple
things that we have, two pieces, but they
absolutely fit together. And we'll point out a couple elements. One is moving, let's talk
about this in simple terms. We have this, this groove, three notes, multiple notes here, really
quick or short note duration. Like, notice how they contrast each other, and have kind of two
parts of a personality. So, you're bah bah, bada bada, yeah. But notice how this, and
then this totally changes, it gives us something new. So you guys just collaborated. But, notice this, I wanna
bring up two points. You have, fundamentally,
you have two different, two different rhythms that
work all on the same tempo, but this one is mostly,
mostly quicker motion. And then this is much more laid-back, and a little bit more syncopated. So if you think about
that, there's two kind of basic elements that you always
are balancing in your music. You're balancing syncopation
against on the beat, 'cause if you have on the beat, something sounds pretty
heavy all the time. It starts to feel like
really kind of ploddy. If it's too syncopated,
it tends to, it'll grab the listener's attention,
but it tends not to... It tends to have a little less force. It's gonna be more ear-candy. So think of that, as you're
analyzing these songs tonight, you're analyzing rhythm
only, layer of syncopation versus on the beat,
like, kind of straight. To me, this is a perfect combination, 'cause we've got two, I mean, that's, but you guys naturally picked these two, which was interesting, you picked both of those
that you remembered. So you're starting with two things that are really memorable. So what I wanna do now, we've got this, so we've got a combined groove, and realize this is to me,
that's a whole lot more interesting than any one
of those grooves was. Do you agree, or, I mean, you can tell me if you think I'm wrong,
but that was a whole lot more interesting that any one of them. So we've got, also we
have change and contrast in that little four measure section. So all of the sudden, we've
got, so too much of one might be not as interesting. Now think about what we can do here is, for a hook element,
there's also in, let's, before we even bring in melody, let's think about just like
an outline of a plot for your, say like a chorus or something, one of the simplest ways,
super-simple contrast and ways to set up a hook
is take something like this, have one piece lyrical,
and one piece syllables. And it could be, "Bah bah
bop," or "bah bah bada bada." But I guarantee you, one of
the most memorable things on the planet in hooks,
remember the best lyric tools on the planet for hooks with, some people will kill me for saying this, is no lyric at all. (laughs) No lyric, only vowels. Because, why? And I love lyrics. (mumbles) Students who are my
friends, who worked with me, know I will spend hours
and hours on lyrics. But I have, even me is like,
who is a lover of lyrics, has to admit that some of
the most memorable things on the planet are non-words. 'Cause they're the most universal. And that's not to say, "Don't use words." But remember this, like when I say, like anytime, we'll go back to old songs, Sweet Caroline, by Neil Diamond, plays, what do people sing? - [Voiceover] Bah bah bah. - Yeah, and they might have
even sang, bah bah bada bada. (audience laughter) If that was around. But yes, and then like
think of all the songs that you're, that you sing,
like the non-lyric element. Because it, like, if we're
playing on the most-base level, and this is your, again, your
lower-archy of songwriting, is like, if you give me a
rhythm that I can pound out, I can teach back to somebody immediately, it will be absolutely memorable. If I can give them a melody
that they have to, like, not think about to sing, and this is, we can get to the other place,
but I have a good friend, and she's a wonderful songwriter, and a very highly intelligent person, but like one time, like I felt she said the most
brilliant thing on the planet when we were writing, and she said, "Yeah, when I'm dancing
and listening to music, "I really don't wanna think." And I was like, "Oh." You know, and this is
not true for all songs. So, like what we're doing, again one way, but something super-memorable,
so keep that in mind. So, what I'd like to do now is let's add, before we
get, because if we go, if we move up on the lyric,
or the music hierarchy, we've got rhythm, so we've
got these two little pieces. Now let's decide, do you
guys think any choice, and this is, there's no
right or wrong answer here. Do you have a choice of, out of those two, and this is how you can
write a song really quick, one with lyric, let's just
do, for the sake of fun, one's gonna be lyric, and one's not. Is there like, any overlying choice? - [Voiceover] Second part, lyric. - Second part lyric? The nice, three? - [Voiceover] Oh yeah, bah, bah bah. - You want, you want some lyric on that. And so, in the rest, we're gonna do-- - [Voiceover] Bah bah, bada bada. - Bah bah, bada bada, okay. All right, so this is, well,
this makes it even easier. See, like the great thing
here, that decision was made, and (mumbles) is everybody, how
do you guys feel about that? Yeah, okay, as long, as
long as you're, okay. So now, now you just saw mostly, so for the non-three-note section, we pretty much just wrote the lyric. (audience laughter) Which makes it easy, we
got bah bah, bada bada. Which brings us to a point. Jim had mentioned last night. You wanna tell that story, really quickly? This is a really good, the placeholders. - [Voiceover] Oh, yeah, I
think this is the Ronettes, da doo ron-ron, when it
was originally written, da doo ron-ron was a placeholder. They were gonna put lyrics in. And once they put the song together, they decided it was
excellent the way it was. - So, yeah, there you go. So don't overlook this. So we've got bah bah bada bada, okay. Now, let's start singing
this with bah bah bada bada. We're gonna sing this again, so. And natural flow, are people feeling good? I mean, obviously becomes a loop. First, same order we've got, let's start, like we've been starting
here, going there, okay. Feels good to me, too, I like that. Okay, so let's start singing that, and like now, we'll give you about three. Can you guys, enough,
hear it in your head? Or do we need to do it again? That, bah bah bada bada, so we
got three words that come up. There's really sometimes
two, like and then I kind of make light of this, but
it's like, it's very true. Songwriting sometimes is easier, like, parts of it are easier than you think. I think we psych ourselves out. But we got three words to come up with. And like, let's think
about even sometimes, like, the words, and then we've
got three notes really, is all we're dealing with,
so, let's hit the notes. And we're gonna move up, and then we're gonna get to a lyric. So we've got three notes,
so let's start singing this, and we're gonna go back
now to layer melody. Now, simple thing on melody. Easy, like, once you have
the rhythm, you have like, more than half the equation over. And so, like now, we just
need to make something super-simple, and obviously singable. And singable is gonna be,
once you've taken rhythm and already gotten
something you're singing, it's really not that
hard, 'cause most people are not gonna sing aloud
something you can't sing. Like the biggest problem
I find is when people are creating on an instrument,
and you write something that becomes really unsingable as a, as a vocal melody,
instrumental melody no problem. You can do anything you want. But let's get something,
so let's move, yeah. - [Voiceover] I've got a lyric. - You got some lyric. - [Voiceover] It's, "We've got one thing," 'cause we make it hit like that. So, "We've got one thing." - We've got one, okay. - [Voiceover] So when they do that part, we can sing, "We've got one--" - We've got one, okay, that's
what, we'll put that out. Let's, yeah, let's hold
that, and we'll go through a number of lyric ideas. But let's hold that, and we'll get, 'cause we'll put a bunch out there. Let's put a melody, like
I wanna move melody first. And then, 'cause it might affect it. 'Cause I want everything to stem from what's the music telling you,
'cause we've moving from base. Like, lyric will be like the last thing. It's like, you know, the
last thing that gets engaged, is my brain, sometimes it takes awhile. But we're gonna move up. So, let's sing that, let's start singing at the bah bah, bada bada,
and then let's put some, some melody over you guys' part. (audience murmuring) (clapping) One, two, three.
- [Voiceover] Bah bah, again. - [Neil] Four. ♫ Bah bah bada bada ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ Bah bah bada bada ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ Bah bah bada bada ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ Bah bah bada bada ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ - And notice, you already have a melody? - [Voiceover] You could, like-- - Okay, keep, no, keep going.
(clapping) ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - Just keep going in the sync. ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - You guys, sing this one out. ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ - Yes, thank you. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ - (laughs) It's work,
all right, now, sure. Okay, now, do you wanna stick with that, or you wanna change that up? How about votes from both sides? We have this descending line. - [Voiceover] How about, "We are one?" - [Voiceover] Let's hear some
more, and then we'll go again. - [All] Yeah.
- [Neil] Yeah. - [Neil] Okay. ♫ Bah bah bah ♫ - Okay, okay. All right, yeah, let's try. Two, three, four. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ - Better last, somebody
throw another one in. We'll go. (clapping) Three, four. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ - Yeah, just keep it rolling, just keep, and then, you guys, as
you guys keep singing. As you guys do your part, give us, and everybody like, you
start a new mel, same rhythm. You gotta keep the rhythm,
but give me a new melody. Notice how this changed it, totally. (clapping) ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - You guys have to be my anchor, just keep singing your
part when it comes up, no matter what, and we'll
get these guys going. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ - All right, come on, you can do it. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ - All right, we're gonna have to take. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - Somebody from here can jump in, too. - [Voiceover] You can sing a-- - Okay, do that. ♫ Bah bah da ♫ - [Voiceover] Yeah! - Okay. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - You guys keep propellin'. ♫ Bah bah da ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah bah da ♫ - And you know, it's so
far from what we've got. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah bah da ♫ - I like this one the best, so far. Anybody like that? - [Voiceover] Try that one, different fit. - Oh, kay, well, you jump in and tell. - [Voiceover] No, I don't wanna do it. (audience laughter) - Yeah, you can do it, you
can do it, you can do it. (clapping) ♫ Bah bah da ♫ - [Voiceover] Yeah! - Oh, (mumbles) nice. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah da ♫ - [Voiceover] Yeah, yeah. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah da ♫ - How about that? ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫
- [Neil] All right! ♫ Bah, bah da ♫ - Okay, everything's there,
your reaction to to the-- ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah da ♫ - Okay, now let's sing it a
couple of times with some. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah da ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Bah, bah bah ♫ - Okay, cool, let's finish that. I think we have that (mumbles). We just made something really cool. Feel pretty good, feel pretty good? - [Voiceover] Feels good! - Okay, and notice what we did, like, look at what happened,
and this is probably the biggest thing of like,
hook writing, I think. To think about is, what did you do? You took three pitches
and turned them into one. We still have three notes,
and we went almost practically back to unversed, and then
your adjustment became where it sat in the scale. So, you simplified, and I
think the biggest thing is people like, "Yeah, I'm writing a hook." And you're like, well, that's
complex-ness, not a hook. You know, so you always think like, make it as simple as possible. In this type of setting. So we've got, you've got one note. Like people, like in some of
the melody classes I work in, like people will be
like, oh your life, like. The biggest problem I
find with melodies is, there's too many notes. People are just writing all
over the freakin' place. And it's like, you can't,
like the best songs have a few notes, and we'll
just play them over and over. Like, I mean, take Taylor
Swift's Out of the Woods, which I use this as an
example, when anybody tells me like, "Oh, I need more notes!" It's like, it's one note,
the chorus is one pitch. And it's just all the changes
is the bah bah bada bada part. It, literally, it's the
rhythm, only thing that changes in that chorus is the rhythm. And it's like, she can
write a million-selling hit with one note, just remember,
like maybe I've got too many. So, we just went back to,
at least in part of it, one note, awesome adjustment,
but great ear on that. So now what we gotta do
is, we got those three. What are people feeling when
they're hearing this thing? Like, what are your,
any emotional quality, fun, sexy, mad, I mean. - [Voiceover] Swagger. - Swagger, okay. Any other? - [Voiceover] Determination. - Any other? - [Voiceover] Yeah, doing
tough lifting or something. - [Voiceover] Right, yeah. - Determination, I think,
any other thoughts? Themes, themes, give me theme,
like, give me touchy-feely. LA California, yeah man. (audience laughter) Give me that. - [Voiceover] It's kind
of like, spiritual, like, if they were like-- - (laughs) Groovy. Spiritual, uplifting, (mumbles). And don't feel like you're, again, don't feel like you're swayed by, I mean. We'll try to reach some
kind of common ground here. This is kind of teaching
you about co-writing, where it's like working
and feeling somebody else. So, we simplified, anything else? What do you just tell
me what you're feeling. Seduction. - [Voiceover] I think confidence. - [Voiceover] Change, it
could be really dancy. - Yeah, well that's a big
factor, and we'll talk. - [Voiceover] Fun. - [Voiceover] A little slower. - Fun, fun, okay, good,
can we, fun, happy. - [Voiceover] Sounds
like a Pepsi commercial. - Pepsi commercial. - [Voiceover] Yeah. - [Voiceover] That, bah bah bah, you know. - That wouldn't be a bad thing (mumbles). We kind of need a big one for like the, to split all this up. (audience laughter) It's the biggest hit, we
each made three bucks. (laughing) Which is awesome. The paperwork will be like this (laughs). That'll be, that's perfect for the ASCAP. We'd like to register this, we've got 48, we're gonna say 48 co-writers. So, okay, well let's get, any
of you guys have thoughts? (mumbles) We've got Pepsi commercial. We've got like, some people
said kind of sexy, sultry, is there anything? (audience murmuring) Anything else, any kind of votes? - [Voiceover] I'm feeling
like we're going somewhere. We're not sure where we're going, like. ♫ We don't know ♫ - Mmm. ♫ Da da da dada ♫ - Da da, interesting, okay, cool. Anything else, any other? Okay, can you like, all
right, give me like, can you now that you have idea. Can you say like one phrase. And this is what I want
you to think about. What was the phrase we had? You reminded me of yesterday. Oh, let's get something, but we want like, something really, like clear, clarity. What was the thing, clarity trumps. Clarity trumps cleverness. - [Voiceover] Yeah. - Yes, so what you were kind of mistaught. So like, everything I'm
teaching you is like, the anti, which I, I love
a really clever song. I'm just being kind of anti-myself, even. But the reality in the end of the day, when you're writing a hook, it's like, if you're really clever and cerebral, you know, like those jokes,
like only your friends get, you know, that's
great, but like if you wanna sell a lot of records. (audience laughter) It's not good. - [Voiceover] If it's not
clear, it's not gonna help-- - Yeah, exactly, it doesn't
really help the cause. My four friends bought the record. That's great (laughs). So, give us something, like really clear, and again, emotional-level, like. I'll use an example really quickly. There was a, and I'll use this no-names, but it was from one of my
classes online right now. And somebody has basically had
this really cool song idea. That was like it came out of
the, it was people co-writing. It came out of the idea of,
he was flying on a plane, and the, the idea, you know, the, when they give the, what
do you call, the lecture, the oxygen mask lecture,
you know how they always talk about like. - [Voiceover] Safety lecture. - Yeah, safety lecture, so
when the oxygen mask descend, you know, like they say,
like mothers with children, small children, you know,
put the mask yourself before assisting your child. You know, which, so
this guy had this idea, and he was like, "Wow,
this'll be a great idea." Like, I'm gonna write
a song about, you know, with the kind of take
into the concept, you know before, you gotta help
yourself before you, you know, you have to
take care of yourself. You know, the idea of you work on yourself before you can really go
out and save the world. Which I was like, "Oh, this is a great." You know, it's got kind
of a spiritual message or you know, whatever you wanna call it, like really fundamental message. But within the song lyric, there was like this dramatic. (booming) Breakout bridge, it kind
of had semi-like modern plus retro-'80s rock ballad had things, so it has big dramatic bridge, and like, kind of the end of the bridge was like. It said, before assisting others. (audience laughter) Be sure to help yourself. And I was like, there's
no flubbing factor there. There's nothing, it's
like there's the concept. But like the whole song
just went (whistles). Because there's no
emotional qual, like if I, you know, it's like, it
would be the equivalent of like, if you met
somebody and you told them, like, "Wow, the neurons
are firing in my brain, "are highly activated
when you're around me." You know, it's like there's no, like, you have no emotion, you
know, it's different than like, "You're hot!" You know, it's like,
tell me that, or like, "I'm falling in love." But, remember, it's gotta be emotion, and like while we, as
writers, try to avoid cliches, things like that, emotion,
emotion, emotion, emotion. What are we writing, we're creating music. But we're really creating emotion. So we gotta get three words, three words that give you the zing factor. And like you just imagine,
like, whatever they are saying them to somebody, so you don't need to be, if we can make them real
clever after, awesome. You know, and it they
happen to come out clever, that's great, we need clarity, clarity, three simple things that hit you. And so now, let's go back
to, anybody have ideas? Give me three words. - [Voiceover] Sick and tired! - Sick and tired. Okay. Anything else, keep going. - [Voiceover] Love music-- - [Voiceover] Front row girl. - Front row girl. (audience laughter) They say, "Don't write
anything you don't know." (laughing) Okay, that's interesting, I don't know. Okay, start calling, I don't
know, there's intrigue there. I like, sick and tired, makes me mad. - [Voiceover] Close your eyes. - Close your eyes, close your eyes. - [Voiceover] Backwards,
backwards (mumbles). - [Voiceover] Back row girl. (audience laughter) - Back row, yeah, yeah. - [Voiceover] Count me in. - Count me in, okay, back, we got, can we do back row man, or something. No, that's backdoor, that's backdoor man, which doesn't work in
this day and age any more. But the (laughs). - [Voiceover] Burn it up. - Burn it up. - [Voiceover] Let me go. - [Voiceover] Don't leave me. - [Voiceover] Got to be-- - [Voiceover] What you want. - What you want. - [Voiceover] Brush your teeth. (audience laughter) - Brush your teeth. Spinach.
- [Voiceover] Count me in. - [Neil] Count me in, count. - [Voiceover] Count me out! - Count me out. (audience talking at once) Count me out hits me more
than count me, but it's. - [Voiceover] Loss for words. - Loss, (laughs) nice. - [Voiceover] Feels so good. - Feels so good, okay,
feels so good, feels, oh. - [Voiceover] Got to be. - Got to be, got to. - [Voiceover] Feels so good. - Feels so good. - [Voiceover] Just this time. - Okay, all right, let's, we'll do some. Okay, these are good. Okay, let you do some
non-text voting again. Like okay, somebody who like
didn't throw any out there. Like, tell me what, throw
out some of your favs, that were just cast out, what do you. What's your first one you remember? (audience talking at once) - [Voiceover] Count me out. - [Voiceover] Brush your teeth! - We got brush your teeth. (audience laughter) - [Voiceover] Count me out. - It just turned from Pepsi to Colgate. (laughing) - [Voiceover] Sync license. - Okay, wait, okay, let's-- - [Voiceover] Count me out. I remember count me out. - Count me out, what was others? - [Voiceover] Back row girl. - Back row girl, back
row girl, front row girl. - [Voiceover] Back row front row girl. - [Voiceover] Brush your teeth. - Brush your teeth, okay,
we got brush your teeth. (audience talking at once) Count me cap seek, we have to, we don't. We don't have a vowel, Pat. (laughing) Yeah, we're missing a syllable. So if we have one. We don't have Vanna, either. Okay, so we got the, okay, this is what, the top ten list, we got brush your teeth, count me out, back row
girl, front row girl, those seem to be the most memorable. - [Voiceover] Feels so good. - Oh, and feels so good. Let's go from-- - [Voiceover] Close your eyes. - Those could be back up
lines that we'll add, yeah. Okay, cool, okay, let's go from these. Let's get some top ones outa this. And tell me why, just give me some why. What's, it's gonna have
to have like, what's-- - [Voiceover] Count me out
feels sort of emphatic, like bah bah bah bah. - Count me out. - [Voiceover] And the way the phrase ends, it sort of stops and it sort
of sounds like (mumbles). - Okay. - [Voiceover] Change brush
your teeth to something. - [Voiceover] It's a vowel. - Yeah, I'm just bringing up as a point. Because it's like, the ones that hit you. Like, this is like why I'm saying why. Exactly, we don't have to. - [Voiceover] Okay, I like back row girl because it's sort of like Underdog. - [Voiceover] Yeah, yeah. - Okay, cool, all right, okay. - [Voiceover] Front row
girl reminds me of like, one of those rock songs
by Motley Crue, or-- (audience laughter) (audience talking at once) - [Voiceover] Rock band, big hero. - Okay, okay. - [Voiceover] That kind of a concept. - So, is that a yes or a no? (laughing) Oh, you want the yes, okay. 'Cause in different circles,
that could go a different way. Yeah, I'm with you. I grew up with that. I've a got a Motley Crue t-shirt. No, I do, actually. Just not on (laughs). Yeah, okay. Again. - [Voiceover] This is a
little bit of a cheat, but I like count me in. - Count me in, okay. - [Voiceover] Count me
in yeah, more optimistic, positive, come on, let's go (mumbles). - Okay, yeah, it can be,
this is where we gotta narrow it down, okay. Let's do. - [Voiceover] I like feels so good. - [Voiceover] I like brush your teeth, 'cause it's a commentary on human society instead of-- (audience laughter) - Okay, yeah, there you go. Okay, yeah, yeah, that's not bad. - [Voiceover] Form-fed. - It is, (mumbles) okay, all right. Let's go from, let's
like not make a decision on like sort of front or
back, 'cause you're right, these are two different worlds. And we'll cross those in a moment. So let's do. Kiss me now, we can't, there's
no more, voting is closed. (laughing) We can't undo this. There's no saves in this,
you can't vote back to save. Let's take it and break it
down, quickly (mumbles). Give me like, okay, what do you feel? We're writing for imagine
like, let's just take this situation writing for another artist. Give me the one that grabs you the most, as the most, just the most compelling. Most compelling, let's
get, let's just do like, a simple vote, we're gonna
do, we're gonna group the row girls, and the counts, and then we'll play with that in a second. And then, we'll do brush your teeth, and then the other one,
we'll keep as feels so good. So let's go feels so good,
how many we got on that? Got about, I don't know,
somebody count that, about 10. Okay, feels so good. Let's do the brush your teeth. (audience laughter) Okay, that one's not, okay. - [Voiceover] Yeah. - Okay, brush your teeth, okay, cool. This is all valid, and
like even if didn't give a, doesn't mean it's not a good song. But this is just a part of collaboration. Just quickly know when
you're collaborating, and your idea gets turned down, recent, and what was the Josh
Osborne song that was on the Aca, the Grammys,
that they threw out the idea, in the co-writing session,
and they got shot down. So they just took it and
wrote it with somebody else and then won a Grammy with it. So just remember when you're co-writing, somebody doesn't like it,
is just an opportunity to write it with somebody else. It's all about finding your groove. So, as you realize, some of
these don't come through. So that leaves us with,
we'll see how these compare to like what, okay, the count mes, we'll decide on the in or
out later, the count mes. Count mes? - [Voiceover] Can I vote twice? - What? - [Voiceover] No. - [Voiceover] No, are you crazy? - [Voiceover] You cannot vote twice. - The count mes, okay. Now the back-fronts, together. Back-fronts together, okay,
these are kind of close. We might have to have
somebody, can somebody count? 'Cause my math skill is limited. All right, okay, count mes, let's do the. I think those beat, still, feels so good. Okay, I think we've got
count me in, count me, this is our thing, count me
in will go one way or another. And then against the back rows. Let's figure that out,
which was, count mes? What have we got, about
one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12. Okay. And back-row-front-row. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12,
that one seems to be the, yeah, that one seems to be the strong. Okay, front versus, now let's do. And again, keep them, this is
just like quick elimination. For the sake of time. But it's kind of a good way to write. Because you still have,
the other thing is, realize you already have
now, a whole more titles to write with, so you just,
the beauty of co-writing is like, you write out with
a bunch more songs that, like almost (mumbles) okay. So let's go, quick debate of front-back. Front versus back. Okay, front, front, how many front? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 12, (mumbles) okay. Back, one, two, three,
four, five (mumbles). I think that one wins,
it's, there's more back. Okay, well, let's just do that for now. That sounds good, okay, now let's sing it. We've got three words,
and we're gonna sing, what is it, back row girl, back row girl. Okay. Let's start this side. You guys gotta remember your part. Now, lots riding on
you, we've got (laughs). This is getting heavy, we've
got three words over here. (audience laughter) Okay, somebody give me the, what's it. (clapping) One, two, three, four. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Front row girl ♫ - One note, remember. (laughing) ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Front row girl ♫ - Yeah, you gotta sing out,
'cause you're leading this. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Front row girl ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Front row girl ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Front row girl ♫ - Okay, cool, you've got it. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ Front row girl ♫ - Yeah, okay. ♫ Bah bah baba baba ♫ - [Voiceover] Harmony is nice. - Yeah, we can work that in absolutely. Okay, so we got, like,
simply put, two hooks here. Now, obviously, okay, think about this. We're gonna like, what
I call, this in a song, when you're working with a chorus element, like a, people talk about a chorus being you know, sometimes people
refer to the chorus as hook. Well, it's, yeah, but
it's usually broken down into multiple hooks. So we have the lyric hook layer, now we have back row girls,
somebody was singing girls. Or something like that,
with the S, Z-sound. It was just kind of interesting. And you guys can decide on this later. You guys go and meet up after
and finish this one off. But you know, it'll be great. So we have, we've got
the lyric idea, okay. 'Cause we've got, you have something that, at least on the idea,
there's something engaging. There's something engaging. It spurs some kind of feeling thought. You now have a melody, a one-note melody. Which is awesome. To me, the simpler, the better. Sometimes it's just, I'm just
kind of pushing you on this. But like, a really cool
thing, we simplified melody. And now we've got a groove
element combined with what I call like, an
if you leave this song, it's like a instrumental,
this is one of the most common things, like what
I call a vocal/slash instrumental hook, very common in chorus. Sort of like, think, you
know, the same thing like, what do you have in like, the
huge hit starts out the song, the guys train save
soul sister, it's like, these are super-common,
just sing it, sing again. No words, 'cause everybody
will remember your lyric when you have no words. And nobody can not like it. And so we have those two elements, and that's right, all
you have in a chorus. So, one of the most common
things with the hook, is bring something like, this piece, start your song with it, very common. Like, you guys probably
have heard that, seen it, all the time, but like
say that hey soul sister. What do they, just start
out with that chorus. When they start out
the vocal/instrumental. One of the like, most
classic uses of hook. Take that piece, don't sing your title, bring this whole thing
in, use it as your intro. Or your can use your whole chorus. But one of the most common things. So, what I'd like you guys,
here's another exercise I'd like you to do when you're doing, you're like, "Wow, this guy
really does teach school. "He's giving us exercises" (laughs) Yeah, one of the most simple things to do is what I want you,
notice those two elements, just those simple two
things, there's vocal, or like, another simple
example, Katy Perry, you know, Roar. How do they do it, like
instead of alternating, same concept, but will have
a complete lyric chorus. So it's all like, think
of the chorus of Roar, it's complete lyric, then
it steps over to complete vowel chorus, and then
it drops in the title. So you have that same two element, but think of this very common modern song is that you have both
elements in a chorus. Super, super common. Just like, go through songs,
and just start noticing this. Like what, I have an
exercise if you really wanna get a little, like
anal-retentive about this, which I think is kind of useful, is just color, highlight, take
a lyric sheet and color this. Here's a hook here, here's a hook here. And you're gonna start
to notice like, I've got, and just label, and for
right now before (laughs) you take my course that
will ultimately come out, you're gonna get names
for all these in like, again, my hope is to
standardize, but you'll see, okay, here's my song, and you'll really, okay, I've got a, you'll
start seeing these patterns that come through a song
over and over again. I've got lyric hook, I've
got vocal/instrumental hook. And then we'll look at,
where is that used again, and as you look at it with the song, and you highlight these
things in different colors, you'll see that a song is
actually like a piece of art. We all talk about colors,
that a song will be a pattern. Like, a song is really just
a whole series of patterns. And I'll give you another
trick here in a minute. But this is, really do
this, if you'll like, you will learn more from a
song, the simplest thing. Like, you know how, how many people go to like, Hit Songs Deconstructed? Not that many, no. There's no Hit Songs Deconstructed? What? Oh, we gotta get, let's go quick. Yeah, check out that, but here's, I'll leave you this one simple technique. And this will improve your lyric, you're hook writing immensely. Do the same color technique
with, as you take a melody, walk through each one of your sections, and like, take whatever, do this with, before you do it to your song, do it to a hit song. Walk through each section of the song, and listen with your ear with melody. You don't have to be like
a super-trained musician for this, each time the
same melody returns, and I'm not talking
lyric, but I'm actually talking melody, you know often we'll get the same melody piece,
highlight it with a color. Do it on your word processor. Next melody, highlight
it with another color. Every time you have a
different kind of melody, different color, same melody, same color. You will be amazed that like, you just unlocked like
all the patterns of song. Go look you'll see, lay it out, do it, trust me, and then,
you'll just have templates for patterns to make a song, and you'll never look at
a melody in the same way.
