Create amazing music

With Hookpad Musical Sketchpad

Hookpad is designed for larger screens so best to try from a tablet, laptop, or desktop!

Hookpad has completely changed my ‘songwriting life’

Dan Gruemmer

This is Hookpad

A musical sketchpad with built-in music theory that helps you create beats, songs, and musical snippets.

Create chord progressions

That work. In seconds. It’s easy with smart chord palettes and one-click entry.

Create melodies

That complement your chords.

Hookpad melody stable scale degrees showing

In any style

With dozens of professionally tuned bands, instruments, and rhythms.

Write lyrics

Effortlessly with intuitive tools and precise control.

Hookpad magic chord carousel

Create scores,
lead sheets,
guitar tabs

With a single click.

Drag and drop
MIDI

To every major DAW.

Export MIDI to DAW - GarageBand, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Reason, ...

Nothing to install

Works instantly in desktop and mobile browsers.

Happy face star eyes emoji

Just like magic

Voicing engine. Rhythm engine. Music theory. Chord suggestions.

Hookpad magic chord carousel

The best melody composing tool for generating original MIDI.

As a non-instrument playing, mostly beat oriented, casual user I have to say Hookpad is simply the best melody composing tool I have tried for generating original midi - and that includes about every single iPad App and harmony VST out there. I believe you have nailed it in regards to using the laptop keyboard as input device, it really is a quick way to try multiple ideas fast.Erich Nokling

Hookpad has completely changed my ‘songwriting life’

It is no exaggeration to say Hookpad has completely changed my ‘songwriting life’ - in terms of enabling me to do things I couldn't do before without it, and enabling me to do other things much more easily than I could before.Dan Gruemmer

Easily the best composing tool I've found to date

I've properly grasped more about music composition in a week of using Hooktheory than in 8 years of classical training. Easily the best composing tool I've found to date. Just wanted to say thanks for all the hard work!Tony May, Facebook

Let’s get a little technical

Hookpad helps you create chord progressions that work.

Picking the right chords for a song can be tough. There are so many chords to choose from, yet only a select few sound good in any given scenario. Hookpad’s chord palettes show you the chords that work well together in a particular key.

Hookpad helps you create good melodies.

Once you've chosen some chords, Hookpad can help you pick notes for your melody by highlighting the notes in your chords. Hookpad will show you the notes that create either a stable or a more dissonant sound. Use the stable notes as a guide when you are picking notes for the melody. The Hooktheory Book Series covers this topic in great detail.

Entering a melody in Hookpad with melody guides (stable scale degrees of chords) showing

Hookpad makes it easy to swap instruments, rhythms, styles.

There’s an art to playing a chord progression on piano or guitar. With Hookpad, it happens automatically. When you swap an instrument, rhythm, or style, Hookpad magically creates a professional arrangement, so you don’t have to.

Easy access to the most used chords, scored by popularity in real music.

It turns out that out of the hundreds of thousands of chords, the vast majority of music is written with just a handful of them. Hookpad’s AI gives you easy access to the most used chords, ordered and scored by popularity in real music.

Hookpad popular chord palette

Find the perfect next chord.

Hookpad’s AI provides chord suggestions that update in real-time based on the chords at your cursor. Each suggestion has a score from 1 to 100 to give you a sense of how often it’s used in this context in real music.

Overcome creative ruts. Find sounds you might never discover on your own.

Hookpad’s chord suggestions always include the “obvious” answers as the first few options. But at the tail end, you can find some unique suggestions that can take you into a totally new sonic space.

Get a head start by using a proven chord track or melody from a hit song.

Hookpad includes a searchable library of chords and melody from over 40,000 hit songs written out in Hookpad. In seconds, copy and paste any clip from the library into your project, transposed to the correct key and tempo.

Speaks MIDI. Works with your DAW.

With MIDI drag-and-drop, working between Hookpad and your DAW just makes sense. You can save time and avoid the frustration of editing MIDI notes by letting Hookpad do that work for you. With intelligent harmony and chord fills and the ability to independently shift the tonal center of each track, incorporating Hookpad into your workflow will save you time and make you more efficient.

Export MIDI to DAW - GarageBand, Logic Pro, Ableton Live, FL Studio, Reason, ...
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Hookpad Resources

Hookpad video tutorials
Hookpad user guide
Hookpad keyboard shortcuts

Hookpad Help

Hookpad magic chord carousel
Hookpad magic chord carousel

Hookpad Companion Books

Fun to read, easy to understand, full of practical knowledge.