Songwriting Trends in TV Commercials

Lately I’ve noticed a whole lot of TV commercials using a similar sound. It’s generally acoustic and organic with a singer-songwriter feel. Some of the selections are taken from songs by known artists like Katie Herzig, others from unknown artists like The Hunts, and still others seem to have been created for the ad. Click on the YouTube videos below to listen to three of the dozen or so I’ve found.

Write Songs for TV Commercials

What was that song on the Delta Faucet commercial, the cute one that goes “So many things your hands can do”? It sounds like a children’s song, something maybe you might write for kids. Well, it is a children’s song. It’s from a Sesame Street record featuring The Count, the vampire Muppet who simply adores numbers. Could you write a song like that? You probably could and possibly you already have.

Put Yourself in a Music Supervisor’s Shoes

Want to sharpen your pitching skills to Film & TV opportunities and get more forwards? Here’s the best exercise I’ve ever found for strengthening your Film & TV songwriting and pitches: Do what a music supervisor does.  Find songs that underscore the emotion, energy, or atmosphere in a scene and test them against the picture!

At the end of this post, I’ll give you some resources for contacting music supervisors and pitching your songs. But before you do that, make sure you have what they’re looking for. Don’t burn a contact because you didn’t do your research.  If you’ll spend a couple of afternoons following these instructions, I promise your pitches will be closer to the mark and your film and TV songwriting will be stronger.