Every festival season, feeds fill with the same few film songs. Families make Diwali reels, shops post greetings, housing societies film their Navratri nights and brands race to publish a festive video before the day. A song of your own stands out, can carry your family's or brand's name, and will not be muted or claimed for using someone else's music.
AI makes this practical even in the last week before a festival: a full song in a few minutes, or a short greeting clip for a few credits, in Hindi, Marathi, Bengali, Tamil, Punjabi or any of 50+ languages.
The sound of each festival
Indian festivals have strong musical signatures. Naming the right instruments in the prompt does most of the work:
- Diwali: dhol, shehnai, bells, warm strings; joyful and family-centred, or devotional for Lakshmi puja.
- Holi: fast dhol, folk rhythms, playful vocals; Braj and Bhojpuri folk flavours work well.
- Navratri and Dussehra: garba and dandiya rhythms, dhol, folk vocals, rising energy.
- Durga Puja: dhak drums, conch-like tones, Bengali vocals.
- Ganesh Chaturthi: dhol-tasha energy, Marathi devotional vocals, chants of Ganpati Bappa Morya.
- Eid: warm qawwali-inspired or soft nasheed-style vocals, harmonium, gentle percussion.
- Pongal, Onam, Lohri and Baisakhi: nadaswaram and thavil, chenda drums, or bhangra dhol, depending on the region.
- Christmas: bells, choir, acoustic guitar, warm and simple.
Style prompts you can copy
Combine the festival sound with the job: a reel, a greeting, a devotional piece or a party track.
- "festive Diwali song, dhol, shehnai, bells, joyful Hindi vocals, 110 bpm, family celebration"
- "Lakshmi puja devotional, harmonium, tabla, bells, soft female vocals, peaceful"
- "Holi party, fast dhol, Bhojpuri folk, playful male and female vocals, 125 bpm"
- "garba, dandiya rhythm, dhol, folk vocals, rising energy"
- "Ganpati festival, dhol tasha, Marathi devotional chorus, powerful, crowd chants"
- "warm Eid greeting, harmonium, soft percussion, gentle male vocals, Urdu"
Greeting lyrics with your name or brand
A festival greeting works best as a short chorus that names who it is from. Two examples to adapt:
Shop greeting (Hindi): [Chorus] Deep jale har aangan mein / Khushiyan aayein har jeevan mein / Sharma Sweets ki taraf se / Shubh Deepawali aap sabko
Holi family reel (Hinglish): [Chorus] Gulaal uda, dhol baja / Rang mein rang gaya mohalla / Mehta parivaar ki taraf se / Happy Holi, sabko pyaar
For devotional words, such as a Lakshmi or Ganesh aarti line, use text you know well and ask someone familiar with it to listen to the result. Sanskrit and older Hindi words can need a pronunciation fix; on Pro and Creator, re-sing a flagged line for 3 credits or run auto-fix pronunciation for 10.
Step by step in Autunes
Decide first whether you need a 20-second greeting or a full song, because that decides which tab to use.
- Short greeting for WhatsApp status or a Reel: open the Short-Form tab, choose a template such as Reels or Ad Jingle, add the festival mood. A 15-second clip costs 2 credits, 30 seconds 3 and 60 seconds 5.
- Full song for a family video or society event: use the Song tab, paste your lyrics with [Verse] and [Chorus] tags, and pick Zori5 Turbo (10 credits) or Zori5.5 XL (15 credits).
- Ready in 2 to 4 minutes. Make a variation (5 credits) if you want a different take.
- For a shareable lyrics video, make a lyric video in one of 12 styles: free users get a 30-second preview and the full video for ₹19, and it is free on Pro and Creator.
- On Pro and Creator, Layer Studio adds an instrument such as dhol or shehnai to an existing song for 5 credits a layer, and Remix restyles a song into a garba or bhangra version while keeping the words.
Licensing for greetings, shops and brands
Free-plan songs are for personal use. To download a free song you buy its licence, ₹9 in India (US$1.79 or €1.59 elsewhere), which also gives you commercial rights to that song forever. A shop greeting, a brand video, a sponsored reel or a monetised YouTube festival special is commercial use, so it needs that licence or a paid plan. Pro is ₹599 for 30 days with 300 credits, enough for a whole season's greetings, and it does not auto-renew after the festival.
Licensed songs need no royalty and no credit to Autunes. Paid plans also keep songs private by default, so a brand's Diwali campaign is not visible before it goes out.
Practical tips for festival season
Festivals have fixed dates, so time is the real constraint.
- Make the music a week or two early, then edit the video around it.
- Keep greeting videos short: 15 to 30 seconds is usually enough to say who it is from and what you wish.
- Make a vocal version and an instrumental version, so you can reuse the music under next year's video or a voiceover.
- Make regional versions of one greeting for customers in different states, with the same mood and different lyrics.
- Check the brand or family name in the finished vocal before you share it widely.
Common mistakes
Most festival videos go wrong in the rush of the last two days.
- Using a hit film song in a shop or brand video, which can get it muted or claimed.
- Mixing festival sounds, such as garba rhythms in a Durga Puja video, which viewers notice.
- Long lyrics for a short greeting; one strong chorus is enough.
- Treating devotional text casually; check the words and their pronunciation.
- Posting a free, unlicensed song in a business account's festive campaign.