Hooktheory I

There has never been a music book like this. Hooktheory I is a smart, fun, skill-building journey that concretely teaches you how to craft melodies and chord progressions like professional musicians and gain a deep understanding and intuition for how music works. Validated by 16,435 musicians like you, Hooktheory I is the best selling how-to music book for instrumentalists, songwriters, producers, and DJs around the world for a reason.


This how-to journey on melody and chord creation is fun to read, easy to understand, and teaches you practical knowledge that will take your chords and melodies to the next level. It contains 41 interactive exercises and 94 audiovisual examples from artists like: Avicii, Beyonce, Journey, Maroon 5, Taylor Swift, and The Beatles, that make it easy to see the tactics these successful artists use.

Reading Hooktheory I doesn’t require any previous music knowledge or the ability to read music. On average, it takes about five hours to read (but more to fully absorb) so it isn't a huge time commitment. Dedicate only a few hours to reading this book and gain a lifetime of skills that will give your music that professional edge.

We wrote this book because we were tired of all of the “songwriting” websites / books that talk vaguely about “finding your inspiration”, or rhyming lyrics, or some other soft, non-actionable component of creating music.

With Hooktheory I, we created an approachable, intuitive resource that concretely answers the hard questions: Why do certain chords fit together easily, and others not so easily? How can I get from this chord to that chord? How can I create a great melody? It's a book that will make you say “ah ha!” many times over.

Recent changes:
• Improved song audiovisual animations with the native Hookpad player. You will experience improved audio and improved resolution. You can also click on chords to hear them and use the native key selector to instantiate some examples in different keys.
• Added dark mode support.
• Fixed 24px font size not working