Hum to Search: Google Now Identifies Songs From Your Humming

Google has launched a novel capability that allows users to identify a song they have in mind by humming, whistling, or singing – representing a significant improvement over existing song-matching technologies offered by Google itself and competitors such as Apple’s Shazam. Starting today, individuals can access this functionality through the most recent iteration of the Google app on their mobile devices, or by utilizing the Google Search widget, and then selecting the microphone icon. From there, they can either ask to identify a song using their voice or select the “Search a song” button and begin making sounds.

This feature is currently available to all Google users who utilize the English language version on iOS, and also across more than 20 languages on Android. The company intends to expand access to additional languages on both operating systems in the near future. As expected, the underlying technology is driven by machine learning algorithms developed internally by Google.

Google states that its song-matching technology does not require professional vocal skills – it is designed to work regardless of musical ability. The system incorporates features to account for varying levels of musical proficiency and will display a confidence level as a percentage alongside potential song matches. Selecting any of the suggested matches will provide further information about the artist and track, including music videos and links to listen to the complete song on your preferred music platform.

In a blog post detailing the new feature, Google explains that the system functions by disregarding vocal quality, accompanying instruments, and other sonic details. The algorithm effectively distills the song to its core elements, creating a numerical representation – or “fingerprint” – that uniquely identifies it.

This represents an advancement of Google’s existing music recognition technology, which is already present in the “Now Playing” feature available on Pixel smartphones. This feature passively listens for music playing in the background and provides a match when it finds one within its offline database, all processed locally on the device. The same technology also powers the SoundSearch feature integrated into the Google app.

Google is not the first company to offer this type of functionality – SoundHound’s Midomi has long provided music matching through singing or humming. However, given Google’s significantly larger user base, it will be interesting to observe whether it can achieve higher accuracy rates and broader adoption.