Year 8 - Music
Hooks and samples in reggaeton
Reggaeton: from Puerto Rico to global phenomenon
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This pupil-friendly study guide includes a unit summary, clear notes, common mistakes, and quick questions with answers.
Unit Summary
Pupils are introduced to Reggaeton, including the context of the style and the influences. They learn about the dembow beat, the tresillo and hooks and riffs. They also develop their understanding of DAW capabilities including low-pass filter sweeps.
Lesson Summary
You have created a melodic hook and bass line for your reggaeton composition.
Key Notes
- Reggaeton often uses melodic hooks which are short, memorable musical ideas that normally repeat in a song.
- It is possible to create hooks by sampling, or by composing them from scratch.
- Bass lines in reggaeton are usually simple and repeated.
- They are typically based on the tonic, which is the 'home' note in a key.
Vocabulary To Learn
- Hook: A hook is a short, memorable musical idea that 'catches the ear' of the listener. It can be instrumental or vocal.
- Sampling: Sampling is using a pre-existing clip of music or sound to create something new.
- Tonic: The tonic is the 'home' note in a key. It is also the note that the key is named after (e.g. the tonic in C major is C).
Common Mistakes To Avoid
- Any melodic idea that repeats is a hook.
3 Quick Questions (With Answers)
1. Explain the lesson in two key points.
Reggaeton often uses melodic hooks which are short, memorable musical ideas that normally repeat in a song. It is possible to create hooks by sampling, or by composing them from scratch.
2. What does this key word mean in this lesson? 'Hook'
A hook is a short, memorable musical idea that 'catches the ear' of the listener. It can be instrumental or vocal.
3. Correct this common mistake.
Mistake: Any melodic idea that repeats is a hook. Correction: It's a bit more complex than that. In some cases, whether something is a hook or not could be a matter of opinion, not necessarily true or false. A hook must be short, memorable, and repeated.
More Lessons In This Unit
Browse all guides in the Year 8 Music guide library.