Linda and Fred Thaler cuddled on the couch in their Fifth Avenue duplex, smiling and eager to talk about their collaborations. There are, of course, their two children, Emily and Michael. Emily, 9, is a ballerina and horsewoman. Michael, 13, is a competitive chess player who celebrated his bar mitzvah last weekend.

But on a chilly winter afternoon, the Thalers’ musical collaborations are the hot topic. They’ve recently compiled songs that they worked on together for philanthropic organizations such as the Red Cross and United Jewish Communities. The compact disc is called “Circle of Love,” and sales are donated to the USO. So far, it has raised $15,000.

Mr. Thaler, 60, is a composer and musical director who has worked in Hollywood, television, and on Broadway. Mrs. Thaler, 54, is the co-founder and chief executive of an advertising agency, the Kaplan Thaler Group, which is responsible for Herbal Essence’s “totally organic” campaign. She also has her own music credentials, with a graduate degree in composition from the City University of New York. But her best-known lyric may be the “I’m a Toys R Us Kid” jingle.

The couple’s songs for non-profits tug at the heartstrings quite effectively. As the Thalers have witnessed, paired with moving images, the songs bring the most somber businessmen to tears. They’re the kind of songs one might tune into on an easy-listening radio station, with slow rhythms and highly emotional lyrics. Up-tempo tunes have a gospel sound with voices to match, such as “Crossroads,” a duet featuring James Lewis and Vickie Sue Robinson. The refrain promises, “At the crossroads, we will meet.”

Many Thaler compositions convey comfort and hope. In “Walk This World Together,” Dee Cartensen croons: “We are traveling to a better place where no one is left behind.” But others acknowledge a world of pain and trouble. In “I Need You Now,” the earnest voice of Graham Tracy sings: “Never thought a baby would be too afraid to cry.”

Mr. Thaler, the composer, said he is striving for “a noble type of feeling,” that spurs “people to go outside themselves and become a little bit more generous.

“You’re trying to generate something which is going to the potential of human beings,” he said.

Mrs. Thaler, who wrote the lyrics to five of the 10 songs on the CD, acknowledges the delicacy of the task. “You’re trying to do something which is honest. You can’t get to that place where it seems artificial. If you’re writing something that is so sappy … that’s always the challenge; at what point do you stop,” she said.

How does she tell when a song has gone too far? “I don’t know where that point is, I just know afterward: Do I feel that I’ve crossed the line, or is this exactly the way I wanted to do it?”

The couple works together to determine that line. As Mrs. Thaler notes, “I’ve never met anyone who is better at editing my work. He won’t necessarily say, ‘Use this word,’ he’ll say, ‘This doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel genuine.'”

Mrs. Thaler is always looking for a hook, “the main germ of the idea,” as she described it.

For an American Red Cross project to raise money for relief aid in Rwanda, Mrs. Thaler found her hook in the gym. “I was watching this horrible footage on television and the guy next to me was working out, he was looking at the television, and then he just looked away. And I thought, you know what, people can’t turn away. Fred took that hook and in just a couple of minutes wrote this beautiful haunting melody.”

The song that resulted, “Don’t Turn Away,” was recorded by Richie Havens in New York on his way up the 25th anniversary of Woodstock. “He was amazing. He sung it to the footage. His voice was breathtaking, we did it in two or three takes. It was a magical moment. Even when I hear that song now. It has this quality to it that’s real,” Mr. Thaler said.

The first music the Thalers made together wasn’t quite as heartfelt. It was a commercial for the Kodak Disc film. Mrs. Thaler was Miss Kaplan at the time, a rising ad executive in her early 30s and the group creative director on the account at J. Walter Thompson. Mr. Thaler, then 40, had ended a stint as the musical director of a television show in Los Angeles, and was getting into commercials. He’d composed scores for three horror films and had worked as Cher’s musical director.

Mrs. Thaler resisted the idea of working with Mr. Thaler, whom she’d never met. “I thought he was from California, I didn’t want to work with him.” But the singer for the commercial refused to participate unless Mr. Thaler was brought in.

The team had a meeting. “So I see this blond guy, assuming that it’s Fred, I already was not happy,” Mrs. Thaler recalled.

“Linda judges very deeply,” Mr. Thaler chimed in.

Then she saw her future husband, “a great looking, 6-foot-2 guy.” She took a colleague aside and told her, “This is the guy.” (As it happens, Mr.Thaler was no California boy; he grew up in the Bronx, a native New Yorker like Mrs. Thaler, who grew up in Queens).

For a while, the relationship was strictly platonic. Then one day Mr. Thaler phoned her at the office.

“I said, ‘Are you calling for business or personal reasons?'” Mrs. Thaler recalled.

“I was flustered. I really didn’t know what to say,” Mr. Thaler said.

Soon they were dating. One highlight: Cher left her sunglasses at Mr. Thaler’s apartment. Mrs. Thaler wore them for two years.

It took a while for the two to get married.

“I was not looking for commitment, not looking to get married. I had gotten a place to stay here and I still had my place out in L.A. I had a great dog, Samto,” Mr. Thaler said.

“He had a very small car. The dog couldn’t fit in the back, so the dog would be in the front seat, and I would be in the back. One time I was taking a cab home from Fred’s place, and Fred had walked me to the cab. Fred was all over this dog. The cab driver said, ‘I hate to get personal, but he won’t commit. He’s so attached to his dog.’ By the end of the cab ride I was hysterical crying,” Mrs. Thaler said.

The two eventually tied the knot and are now nesting as they continue to pursue their careers. Last year Mrs. Thaler wrote her first book, on how to generate ideas. “Bang! Getting Your Message Heard in a Noisy World” has just been published in paperback.

They are involved parents. Music is as much a part of their family life as their professional lives. They’ve started to take their children to the theater – recent shows include “Fiddler on the Roof,” “Wicked,” and “Hairspray.” Mr. Thaler accompanies their son to chess tournaments. (Of his own play, he said, “I move the pieces. I’m a very enthusiastic player and very bad. I haven’t been able to play with Michael since he was 7.”) Mrs. Thaler takes Emily riding. When she wants to pirouette around the living room, she has a built-in accompanist: “I’m sure she assumes that every dad, when she wants to dance, just accompanies her, whatever genre, jazz, ballet,” Mrs. Thaler said.

Mrs. Thaler knows the importance of words, but gives music top billing. “Words are a very poor part of communication. It’s the beautiful music – you feel something before you can describe it,” she said.