Music Cue
A piece of music composed or selected for a specific moment in film, TV, advertising, or other visual media.
Definition
A music cue is a specific piece of music — whether composed, licensed, or selected from a library — intended for a particular moment in a visual production such as a film scene, TV episode, commercial, video game sequence, or trailer. Each cue is identified by its placement in the production, including the scene, timing, and emotional function it serves.
Music cues can range from a few seconds of background ambience to a full orchestral composition for a climactic scene. The process of creating cues for visual media is called scoring, and the person responsible is typically a composer or music supervisor.
Why It Matters
Music cues are where composition meets commerce in the entertainment industry. For composers, creating cues for film and TV is a major revenue source through both upfront fees and ongoing performance royalties every time the content airs.
For music supervisors and producers, selecting the right cue can define a scene's emotional impact. The music cue is often what transforms a good scene into an unforgettable one, making it one of the most impactful creative decisions in post-production.
Examples in Practice
A composer delivers 45 individual music cues for a single episode of a prestige drama, each precisely timed to match scene transitions, emotional beats, and dialogue pauses.
A music library earns $50,000 annually from a single 30-second cue that was placed in a popular reality TV show intro and plays on every episode across international syndication.
A music supervisor selects a previously obscure indie song as the emotional cue for a film's climax, and the song becomes a streaming hit — generating more revenue from the sync placement than the artist earned in the previous five years combined.