Picture this: you’re doing your groceries when they blast a song that’s obviously a bop, and it gets stuck in your head even after you leave. Hours later, you automatically hum the melody while working from your laptop. You want to know who the artist is or what the lyrics are, but you don’t have anything except a catchy tune to help you look it up online. Frustrating, right?
Luckily, Google now has the solution for your vague LSS moments. Enter the tech giant’s new “hum-to-search” feature.
It is what it sounds like — when you have a forgotten song stuck in your head, you can look it up on the Internet by singing, humming, or even whistling part of the song’s tune into your mobile device.
How exactly? With your mobile phone, open the Google app or the Google Search widget, tap the microphone icon and click the “search a song” button or say “what’s this song?” then start humming the tune for around 10-15 seconds. If you’re using a Google Assistant, it’s as simple as saying, “Hey Google, what’s this song?” then humming the tune to find the right song.
If you’re scared your scratchy voice might mess it up, don’t worry — Google’s machine learning algorithm shows you a variety of the likeliest song matches based on the “melody’s sequence” minus any background noise or accompanying instruments.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/21961930/maxresdefault.jpg "Got a song stuck to your head? You can now \"hum\" it to Google to look it up 2")
If this sounds familiar, that’s because the technology of tracking tones has been around since 2009, with the popularity of music recognition apps like Shazam and SoundHound. However, Google’s advanced algorithm, its vast database of songs, and the ability to recognize more than 20 languages put it on top of the pile.
Unfortunately, the feature is only available on mobile, so you can’t sing the song in front of your laptop just yet. We’re just glad we don’t have to sing the wrong lyrics anymore.
