Buzz
If you can recall a line or two from a song, a quick search on Google is often all you need to uncover the title and artist. And if you plan on listening to the track on Spotify, you can even skip Google entirely and search for it right in the Spotify search bar.
In the past, figuring out an earworm without remembering a single lyric was a real challenge—your best bet might have been to hum it for a musically inclined friend and hope they could solve it. Today, however, Google can take that weight off your friends' shoulders.
How to Use Google’s Hum-to-Search Feature
Google has a feature that allows you to hum or whistle a tune to identify the song. To use it, open the Google app on your smartphone, tap the microphone icon, and either say “What’s this song?” or choose “Search a song.” After that, hum or whistle for 10 to 15 seconds, and Google will provide a list of possible matches. You can also use this feature with any Google Assistant-enabled device, like a smart speaker, watch, or TV—simply say “Hey Google, what’s this song?” before humming or whistling.
How Google’s Hum-to-Search Feature Works
Google Search senior product manager Krishna Kumar explained in a blog post, “When you hum a melody into search, our machine learning models convert the sound into a numeric sequence representing the song’s melody. Our models are trained to recognize songs from various sources, including singing, whistling, humming, and studio recordings. The algorithms strip away other elements like instruments and the voice’s tone and timbre, leaving only the song’s core sequence—its unique ‘fingerprint.’”
The program then takes your hummed (or whistled) tune’s fingerprint and searches its database for similar songs. And yes, even if you’re a horrendous singer, it should still work.
