How to Find a Song from a Recorded Snippet: Shazam and Other Apps
We were sitting in a café and heard some interesting songs. You can’t just remember them, so I recorded about 20 seconds of each on my phone’s voice recorder. I figured I’d find them tomorrow: these days finding something online is generally easy.
The Russian-language song was easy to find, but the English one wasn’t.
Why searching by lyrics didn’t help
It wasn’t about the language — typing the words is no problem. We were talking at the time and the music was playing in the background, so on the recording it was very quiet and drowned out by our conversation. The words were almost impossible to make out, and what I found by them didn’t match.
It’s the 21st century, so it was time to let an app that recognizes music by sound do the searching.
Shazam finds a song in a few seconds
The best-known — and, I’ll tell you, genuinely working — service for identifying music from a snippet is Shazam. It’s a free app that identifies the song and artist from a short fragment.
Shazam runs on Android and iPhone, as well as other mobile and desktop systems. Why does it have such a big database and recognize songs better than others? Just look at the funding. According to Wikipedia, by September 2012 the service had raised $32 million, in July 2013 Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim invested $40 million, and in January 2014, after another $30 million round, the company was valued at $1 billion. A company like that should have a good product — and it does.
How to find a song with Shazam
- Install Shazam from Google Play (or the App Store on iPhone) — it downloads and installs quickly.
- Tap the big Shazam button.
- Play the voice recording (or hold the phone near the music). A few seconds are enough.
The app immediately shows the song title and artist, and you can watch the video, listen to the track or buy it right away.
One, two — done. Great!
Other services for identifying music from a snippet
- Midomi and the SoundHound app — they search not only by recording but also if you hum the melody yourself.
- AudioTag — a website where you can upload an audio file with the snippet.
Tips for getting a match
- Record close to the speaker and for at least 10–20 seconds.
- The chorus is better: it’s easier to recognize.
- If the recording is noisy, try several times — sometimes it works on the second or third attempt.
- If you can make out even one line of the lyrics, search for it in quotes.