Identify the Song Stuck in Your Head

Let’s be honest, as intelligent geeks, we know most of the stuff in how-to’s around the web. We’re pretty much the people that write them. They’re usually designed for the less-than-tech-savvy, who find them thoroughly engaging, but often we find how-to guides yawn-worthy.

Well in one of the latest posts from How-To Geek I discovered something I didn’t know before!

The post discusses the best ways to identify a song that you’re listening to, or have listened to.

Most of us with smartphones have already heard of apps like Shazam and SoundHound, which allow you to record a snippet of song, send it to some magical place on the Internet, and solve all debates over which generic pop star sings the song that’s playing. I have used Shazam in many a club and bar and I can nod approvingly at this method identifying playing songs. It even identified a few Hindi songs which I found kinda cool.

What I found awesome were the options for if a) you don’t have a smartphone or b) the song is stuck on your head. While many of you may already be aware of these tools, I was not so enlightened and I think they’re pretty funky ones that everyone should know about.

Firstly there’s what you do if you don’t have a smartphone. Most phones do have some sort of voice recorder. Record your song, upload it to your computer, enable stereo mix (how to do it on Windows 7, I’m not really sure how on Mac… anyone know a way? I figure you can just play the song into the mic on your computer directly from your phone? I may be wrong.) then head over to midomi.com, click play and you’re sweet.

You can also sing or hum into the feature at midomi, which is pretty cool. I believe you can hum into SoundHound too since, if I’m not mistaken, it is the same software as midomi.com.

However, not all of us are very good singers, and sometimes even awesome new technology is no good at figuring out what note we meant to sing. That’s where the next awesome bit comes in.

First, there’s the jfgi option. If you remember some (any) of the lyrics, just type them into Google followed by “lyrics”. I’ve done this countless times – it’s definitely the best way to go if you remember some of the words.

But if you really can’t remember any words – or the song is electronic and doesn’t have any words – you can hit up Wat Zat Song! This is an epic site and it makes me so excited that something like this exists! Here you can sign up, record your lovely little hum, along with some description about where you vaguely remember hearing it, and it’s put out there for the world to help you answer. It’s like a big audio forum for trying to figure out songs.

Now that is cool. I’m not sure if I’ll ever use it, but if anyone has used it, let us know about your experience!

Never leave an annoying song to bounce around in your head unlabelled ever again!

[Via How-To Geek]