“What Song is This?” – How to Identify Any Song without Knowing Lyrics

It is a very common scenario that you are sitting in a restaurant and listening sweet music. But, you can’t remember the lyrics of the song anyhow. What do you do to recognize the song? You can’t take help of Google and Bing because they do not have sound recognition capacity. At least, you need to type two or three words to search a song in Google. In the era of technology, it is not impossible to find out the full song just from the ‘hum’ or from the music. Using image recognition software, it is highly possible to find the total lyrics of a song when you want to know what song is this.

There are plenty of mobile applications and desktop software and services are available which help you identifying the name of the song, the lyrics of the song, the name of the artist behind the song and much more. Even Cortana from Microsoft can able to find the song after listening to the music.

I never mention that all the song finder applications are perfect and work accurately. These applications are almost accurate and most of the time these let you find the song name. Here is a list of best song finder services and applications.

Best Applications and Services to Find What Song is Playing

Use Cortana to identify a song:

Cortana is the “ask me anything” service by Microsoft which is available in Windows 10 and 8. To know the details of a song, just play the song on your PC, launch Cortana and ask “what song is this” or “what song is playing” like questions. Cortana will show you every detail of the song. But, it can’t identify the hum of a song. Otherwise, it is a great tool to find the song detail.

Shazam:

Shazam is a popular mobile application for almost any mobile device like android, iOS, Windows, BlackBerry Nokia s60 etc. The app can be used to find songs using a mobile device. To do this, you need to install the app on your mobile and hit the tag button by holding the phone towards the music or the audio source. It will find out the exact one for you from its preloaded music library. If you are free Shazam user, then you are allowed to search only 5 songs. But, a paid user can search unlimited numbers for $4.99. The phone needs to have an active internet connection for searching any song.

SoundHound:

SoundHound stands as the most advanced song recognition app for android. When you open the app and use the voice command: “ok hound… what song is this” and play the music in front of it, it will show you instant searches along with every detail of a song. ‘SoundHound’ is able to identify any music and hum sound of a song and give the details about it. You need to tap the orange button and use instant search to play, find or buy any song.

Also useful: 5 ways to remove image background

Sound search for Google Play

With “Sound search for Google play” app, you can identify any song playing around you. You can save the song in your list so that you can purchase the song later. Before describing additional steps on how to search the sound using Google play sound search, you should know that the service is not available for every country. You can take advantage of it only on few selected countries.

1. Open Google play from your android device.
2. Search for “sound search for Google play” and install it.
3. Touch and hold home screen from your android device >> tap widgets option.
4. Find “what’s this song” widget, tap and hold it to add the widget to your device’s home screen.
5. Now, at the time of playing a song just say “Ok Google.. what song is this?”.
6. Google will find every detail of the song for you.

Android download link –  Sound search for Google play

MusicID:

MusicID is a much more similar alternative of ‘Shazam’ and services are almost same. If you are living in the US then dial “#43” from your phone and keep the phone around the music that is playing. You will get the name of the song that is playing around you. Android and iOS version of the application is available for everyone and the app does the same thing. AT&T users can use MusicID on blackberry device also. The service is not free actually. You have to pay a small amount i.e. $3 to access the service.

Midomi:

If a melody is stuck in your head and you can’t figure it out, Midomi is very much perfect solution for you. Get a microphone and hum a tune in ‘Midomi’ and you can get the related searches that match the tune. Like Shazam and MusicID, Midomi is not only app based. A web-based service is also available to search any song. You can play a part of the music of any unknown track and identify the song of any unknown one. The web service is totally free. There are also the android app and iOS app available for this Midomi service. Just open the app and hold your phone in front of the song playing near to you. It will display all the results in the app window.

AudioTag:

AudioTag is a different kind of music finder application which uses small recorded audio clip to identify any song. When a song is playing around you, just take the mobile and record the sound as an audio clip. Now, open AudioTag music recognition service and upload the recorded audio clip there. After few seconds, AudioTag will figure out the name of the song from its own database. To figure out the best result, you can either upload the whole music to AudioTag or you can record the audio somewhere near the middle part of the song and upload it to AudioTag.

MusiXmatch:

MusiXmatch is the song lyrics recognition service that lets you identify the complete lyrics of the song. In the lyrics field, type some lyrics part of the song and the service will display the complete lyrics of the song using its huge database. You can browse the song offline also. Using MusicMax, you can share the song with you friends. The app is compatible with any third-party app player.

Musipedia:

Musipedia is the best online music directory and music search engine that helps you to find out any song when you forget the name of the song. There are three alternative ways used by Musicpedia to identify a song.

1. Use the mouse and draw the note of the song to find it.
2. Whistling a tune or hum a sound of the song using your microphone to find your favorite song.
3. Use the music keyboard and type the rhythm of the song to identify.

There is also a normal text-based finding available in Musipedia. If you can type some portion of the song, you can get the song details using the Musipedia library.

WatZatSong:

The list of above services only uses music recognition technology to find what is the name of a song. But, WatZatSong is a song details finder service based on human beings. That mean, WatZatSong is a service supported by music experts who let you identify the name of the song and the artist behind it.

What should you do to know what song is playing around you? Nothing much… just record some portion of the audio and upload the clip to their website. The experts will tell you the name of the song along with details. To get quick and better result and to minimize the effort of the support team, you can mention the song language, artist name, time of the song created etc.

‘WatZatSong’ also has a strong Facebook page and Twitter handle full of music lovers from all over the world. You can share your tune to them to get the quick and best solution. Above all, WatZatSong is a great service that you can trust.

Name My Tune

Another good alternative of ‘WatZatSong’ is Name My Tune. It is also a service provided by humans. Just upload the tune or record the hum and send them. They will respond you to your email as soon as anyone can identify the tune. For best results, mention the era or genre of the song.

Final Words:

There is a number of trusted name (viz. Shazam) that is very famous for music recognition. But, all the time the artificial intelligence can’t fulfill human efforts. So, if you try to identify a song very quickly, then definitely go with Shazam or SoundHound. If you want to get accurate and verified answers, then always go with WatZatSong or NameMyTune. Musipedia is also the library of all classic songs. Now, the choice is yours to find what song is playing around you.

Also useful: 8 android apps to chat with strangers