SongwritingHooks

Hardwired for Hooks: Is the Pentatonic Scale Part of Our Musical DNA?

Are we hardwired to respond to specific musical hooks? I'm fascinated by the idea that there are some hooks that resonate with us at a primal level, independent of preferences we've learned. When I saw the video below, it got me excited about the possibility of the pentatonic scale being one of those primal hooks.

First, let's define the pentatonic scale. I wish I knew enough music theory to really do justice to it in 20 words or less, but here's a definition that should do the trick: the black keys on a piano keyboard. The five black keys play the notes C#, D#, F#, G# and A#, which is one arrangement for a pentatonic scale.

Now, back to the video. It's Bobby McFerrin at the World Science Festival, on June 12 of this year. It's totally worth the 3 minutes and change, if you can spare it. McFerrin is clearly suggesting that the pentatonic scale is more than a learned modality, and that the crowd's response to his actions shows an innate understanding of the pentatonic: “Regardless of where I am, anywhere, every audience gets that. It doesn't matter. That's just... the pentatonic scale, for some reason...”

So where do we find the pentatonic scale as a hook? Here are some quick and dirty examples. Forgive the crummy piano playing – I banged these off rather than putting up recordings, so that we could hear all of them in the same key.

Let's start with the Temptations:

Hear the hook: My Girl             Copyright info

The bass line from “My Girl” is an ascending pentatonic run, pure and simple.

Let's go back a bit further:

Hear the hook:              

The melody of “Amazing Grace” is totally in a pentatonic scale.

As is “Old Man River”:

Hear the hook: 

“Those Were the Days” (the theme from “All in the Family”) is a simple pentatonic plus a couple of stray notes falling off the scale:

Hear the hook: 

Same goes for “Someone to Watch Over Me”:

Hear the hook: 

Any beginning guitar player will learn that soloing on a pentatonic scale is a safe way to go, because most of the notes will fit well over your melody. Does this mean that pentatonic is in its way a baseline (not bass line) for music, the simplest common denominator on which musical communication is built? I wonder...

Apparently the creators of “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” thought so. The musical sequence of notes which they use to finally communicate with an alien race comes from the pentatonic scale.

Hear the hook: 

Worth noting, too: I've made a case for the I-IV-V progression of notes or chords as something else we might be hardwired for. Not surprisingly, I-IV-V can be found within a pentatonic scale.

Lots more on the theoretical and cultural background of the pentatonic at Wikipedia.

And this guitar theory page lists a bunch of contemporary songs whose riffs, melodies or bass lines are pentatonic.

Since all the examples I give above are at least a couple of decades old, it's killing me that I can't immediately think of any contemporary examples. Help! Please post your thoughts below.

P.S. Yeah, baby, SongwritingHooks.com is back! Sorry for the prolonged absence.

P.P.S. Special thanks to TheSameOldSong for the nudge.

Only the Lonely, Roy Orbison: the hook that saved a song

"Only the Lonely" isn't my favorite Roy Orbison song, but it's a fascinating one. The song is way too rhythmically complicated to have had pop success. It's not accessible! But yet, it was a success thanks to its hook.

Have a listen and see if you think a radio listener in 1960 would have immediately been able to grasp the time signature:

Hear the hook: Only the Lonely MP3, dum-dum-dum-dum-bee-doo-wah             Copyright info

What brings the song back to the masses, in spite of the crazy rhythm, is the "dum dum dum dum bee doo wah" sing-along hook. Without it, the song belongs to an odd musical elite. But add that line and the reflex reaction is: "Here's where I come in."

I'm increasingly convinced that not only are sing-along hooks good, but they're made more effective if the rest of the song is unnecessarily complicated! The harder the rest of the song, the more you look for a place to rest, and the sing-along hook does that so well.

Roy Orbison's Hard-Working Song

The rhythmic complexity of the song is even more interesting when you think that the full song is only 2:30 long. Something that short, in today's terms, is such a throw-away length, but this song works hard for two and a half minutes.

The other hook-y bit I do like is the bridge, which has a break-down kind of thing going on, as well as a swelling anthemic belt-it-at-the-top-of-your-lungs quality (which is what I like best of all about Roy Orbison, in songs like "Crying.")

-o-o-o-o-

OK, I've put way too much attention on sing-along hooks so far: Hey Jude (Na na na na!), If U Seek Amy (la la la) and now Roy (dum dum dum). Next post will be something different. I (almost) promise.

Hey Jude, by the Beatles: The Na Na Na Hook

There's no better way to start an encyclopedia of pop music songwriting techniques than with the Beatles, and with Paul McCartney in particular. And there's no better hook in a musician's arsenal than the sing-along lyric. Take a mediocre song, add a refrain of na-na-na, la-la-la, oo-ee-oo, or anything of the sort, and you've made it catchy. 

The power comes from the fact that everyone wants to be a part of the action. With an easy refrain, they can be. You don't have to listen to "Hey Jude" more than once to be able to join in for a full 4 minutes of "Na, na na, na-na-na-NAAAAA." (In fact, the "na na na" part comes in at 3:08 and continues until 7:08 -- meaning there's more "na na na" to the song than anything else.)

Hear the hook: Hey Jude MP3             Copyright info

No Chorus in "Hey, Jude"?

The heavy use of the na-na hook doesn't take anything away from this tune. "Hey Jude" is the Beatles at their pop anthemic best. And McCartney (and ostensibly John Lennon) use a number of interesting devices in crafting this beast. But here's a question: where's the chorus? The most common structure for pop songs is:

verse-chorus, verse-chorus, bridge, chorus
(or sometimes verse-verse-chorus, verse-chorus, bridge, chorus).

But on the premise that the chorus is the easy thing to sing, that repeats over and over again, there's no chorus in this song! I was almost tempted to say that the first "verse" is actually the chorus, since it repeats at the end of the song.

Verse 1:
Hey Jude, don't make it bad
Take a sad song and make it better
Remember to let her into your heart
Then you can start to make it better

But melodically and structurally this part of the song is repeated over and over again with different lyrics, which defines it as a verse. 

Verse 2:
Hey Jude, don't be afraid
You were made to go out and get her
The minute you let her under your skin
Then you begin to make it better.

So it's interesting that one of the best, most memorable pop songs by some of the best pop writers of all time a) uses one of the best songwriting hooks ever, while b) completely disregarding the structural conventions of pop music. Interesting.

Songwriters, it's your turn: Add links to online versions of your own songs, which use the "na-na-na" hooks, in the comments.

And please, one and all, let me know your favourite "na-na-na" songs, plus any other thoughts on this post.