Google Introduces Song Matching via Humming, Whistling or Singing

Google has added a new feature that lets you figure out what song is stuck in your head by humming, whistling or singing -- a much more useful version of the kind of song-matching audio feature that it and competitors like Apple's Shazam have offered previously. From a report: As of today, users will be able to open either the latest version of the mobile Google app, or the Google Search widget, and then tap the microphone icon, and either verbally ask to search a song or hit the 'Search a song button' and start making noises. The feature should be available to anyone using Google in English on iOS, or across over 20 languages already on Android, and the company says it will be growing that user group to more languages on both platforms in the future. Unsurprisingly, it's powered behind the scenes by machine learning algorithms developed by the company. Google says that it's matching tech won't require you to be a Broadway star or even a choir member -- it has built-in abilities to accommodate for various degrees of musical sensibility, and will provide a confidence score as a percentage alongside a number of possible matches. Clicking on any match will return more info about both artist and track, as well as music videos, and links that let you listen to the full song in the music app of your choice.

Whoa...

[iced_773]

Talk about a blast from the past! [slashdot.org]

Re:

[thegarbz]

14 years later someone dug up that Slashdot post and Google finally got it's edge :-)

I already have this? Tunatic

[v1]

iOS store app called "Tunatic", recognizes songs by their Timbre, I thought that was a very interesting approach. Just hold your phone up to the radio or internet video or whatever that a song is playing, and it gives you the artist and title. (works most of the time) It's really slick.

I'd love to have an app that would let me purchase the track and add it to my music library automatically! This should be built into iTunes IMO.

Re:

[Anubis IV]

I was going to say. I've used SoundHound [soundhound.com] to do this exact same thing for years. Mind you, I'm so bad at singing that I've been told at various times and by various people that they had just assumed I was tone deaf. I'm not. I'm simply terrible at controlling my voice, and yet I specifically recall sometime around 2010 doing my best at trying to hum Gollum's Song (from the closing credits of The Two Towers) from memory and being shocked that it was somehow able to match my halting, off-key, out of tune rendi

Re:

[bill_mcgonigle]

> assumed I was tone deaf. I'm not. I'm simply terrible at controlling my voice

Since you're not tone-deaf you are in luck. The trick is to imagine hearing the note a split second before you make it. This takes some practice but will 10x your pitch accuracy in less than a day's worth of work (try it when you're alone in the car over a month or so).

It's much better to do it from memory than to sing along with the radio.

Or start with bird calls if that's easier.

Re:

[Drew M.]

Pretty sure I've done similarly with Shazam at some point in the 10 years since then.

SoundHound is the only one I know of that could do it. Shazam can only recognize real music. Then again I worked at SoundHound for 8.5 years so I'm a bit of an insider. It was amazing tech that didn't get a whole lot of use compared to music recognition.

Re:

[Anubis IV]

Seriously cool tech. Again, I was blown away by it at the time. It really did deserve more recognition than I ever saw it get in the market.

404 Mozart Not Found

[jijitus]

It's a pity; the service seems to ignore even the most common tunes from classical music.
In that it seems very very much like Shazam.

Re:

[dgatwood]

What? You mean when I whistle Mozart's Symphony #40, I'm not supposed to get Ya Ana Ya Ana by Fairuz? Hey, now that I've started listening to it, that's actually not horribly far from right. In fact... holy crap, it's based on it! Now I'm laughing my @$$ off. :-D

Tomorrow

[darkain]

Tomorrow in the news: YouTube demonetizes videos of people humming, whistling, and singing due to automated DMCA complaints.

Re:

[sound+vision]

Sounds more like yesterday.

Re:

[SpankiMonki]

I just tried it out by whistling "Dixie" into it, and my YouTube account was immediately suspended. WTF?

Re:

[sysrammer]

Well, you ain't just whistling Dixie!

I can see where this is going

[Tablizer]

"Eeeeek, a rat!"

Smart Speaker: "Thank you for selecting a Yoko Ono album. Your credit card has been billed."

Or you can use SoundHound

[Drew M.]

Or you can use the https://www.soundhound.com/ [soundhound.com] app otherwise known as https://www.midomi.com/ [midomi.com] who have been doing this for 12 years now and likely has a much bigger music database

Re:

[thegarbz]

An app? I need to download something else instead of simply clicking a button in what I already have?

Re:

[Drew M.]

Obviously you didn't realize you could do it directly at https://www.midomi.com/ [midomi.com]

Re:

[thegarbz]

A URL? Man it's 2020, I expect my phone to do it with a single key press.

Okay I don't really expect it but that's actually what integrating in Google has done.

Awesome if it works

[uhvuhvuhv]

My previous method for doing this was to hum the song to myself, then attempt to pick those notes on my guitar, then to transcribe those notes into sheet music, then to ask on https://musicfans.stackexchang... [stackexchange.com]
With a little additional info on the timeframe of the song, gender of singer etc, I've had good success with this. However, it required a good hour or two of my time, given my mediocre ear and necessity to count out the half-notes from open string for every single note.
On a totally different not

Re:

[piojo]

I once successfully used the musipedia [musipedia.org] sheet music search engine to find which Bach song was in my head, since he composed so many that it's not practical to search through them. You can use a Javascript tool to enter the notes or hum into your mic. I'm not sure how big the library is, or whether it favors older instrumental genres.

and it will say

[Growlley]

every thing is shitty modern pop and then you you will get a revenue demand from the record lables for a 'public' perfrormance.

Amazing flexibility

[thegarbz]

My music skills extend far enough to make any professionally trained singer throw up, the cat hide under the bed, and dogs throughout the neighborhood learn to speak fluent English just so they can come and tell me to STFU.

But through my bleating and belching and above all butchering of songs I know into Google today I've had a 100% success rate. There were some amazing discoveries:
a) you can be wildly out of key, and hit the notes like a stormtrooper.
b) when I tried to sing the bohemian rhapsody it matched me to a parody version of it which amazingly sounded as bad as I did singing it. (Maybe there's a career for me yet)
c) you can sing naturally regardless if you know the words or not. "Lights go out and i can't be seen [sic], la la la... lala lala, brought me down hmmhmm hmmhmm. oh I beg I beg and plead" correctly matched to Coldplay.
d) you can switch between humming and whistling mid song and it still matches.

Colour me impressed. Now I need to go find the cat. I think she's traumatised.

Google song ident

[Residentcur]

You may be surprised to learn that I was disappointed with this "new" service. I tried humming and whistling an old song from Disney or the like, and Google either gave up or presented a number of recent pop hits as candidates. Their search library doesn't appear to go back very far, or into vary many genres. I believe my singing, though atrocious, fell within the range they claim to be able to parse.