Typical Cue length?

[rushmo]

Robin Frederick's book, Shortcuts to Songwriting For TV and Film holds the answers to those questions and many more...jes' sayin'.

My favorite books! Answers a lot!

Glen

[suzdoyle]

There is no one answer because there are different types of cues.

I'm assuming we are talking about instrumentals. Vocal songs are best as full songs of 3-4 minutes.

In the absence of other information, 1:30-3:00 is usually good with at least 2:00 probably recommended. If you have a great cue that's 1:43 and no specific length requirement, don't sweat it.

For advertising (e.g. TV commercials), cues of exactly 30 or 60 seconds are often used because that maps to the time slices commercials are in.

Bumpers are even shorter, often around 15 seconds or less (sometimes a little longer). These are used as music at the end of a radio or TV segment as they transition to commercial.

Stingers are quick 5-10 second cues with a solid button ending. These are used to highlight the end of a scene with the button end generally played in sync with the scene end.

Many composers write full pieces and then make cut downs for the shorter variants-- 30, 60, 15, and stinger.

HTH
Casey

Good points, Casey. One of my challenges as a composer is that I LOVE writing 20 second TV show themes, the typical opening credits kind of thing. Any more than 20 seconds just feels like too much. If only there were more of THOSE kind of listings!

Suz

http://soundcloud.com/suzdoylemusic/zing-zang-zoom