Beethoven's Greatest Hit

Its full title is "Symphony No. 5 in C Minor, Op. 67." The bit that everyone can hum is from the start of the first movement, and it's supposed to represent Fate come knocking on your door.

Everyone knows it as "da-da-da-DUM."

Hear the hook: Beethoven's 5th MP3, rhythm of da-da-da-DUM             Copyright info

I was trying to think of the best hook in classical music, and I think it's this one. Then I tried to figure out how to catalog it. What makes it hook-y? I've decided that it's the rhythm, and not just how the rhythm is used in the first eight notes of the symphony, but how the pattern becomes a small building block that Beethoven uses in layered ways later on.

The rhythm is "short-short-short-long." In prosody (the study of poetic rhythm), this would be a quartus paeon and would be written like so: ˘ ˘ ˘ ¯ .

The intervals Beethoven uses between the third beat and the fourth are all over the place, so it's not really a melodic hook. In some cases, the interval is four steps down; in others it's three, or seven, or two steps up, and there are others. So the notes change, but the rhythm is everywhere.

Then Beethoven gets playful:

Hear the hook: Beethoven's 5th MP3, rhythm on rhythm

Lively, fast, and the violins are going all over the place, but always the same short-short-short-long rhythm, regardless what the notes are doing. Totally memorable, totally catchy, totally hook-y, even in 1808.

Comments

[Kai M-J]

I have two hooks. Number one: Sweet Child o' Mine by Guns n' Roses. The intro is very hooky. Number two: From Green Day's new album, 21 Guns. This song is just very catchy -- The guitar and how he sings it.

Thanks

[Kai M-J]

I have another hook. American I Idiot by Green Day. The intro for about the first 10 seconds of the song. I'm sure if someone else has already suggested this song to you, but I think it's a great hook.