How To Find a Song Name Without Knowing All the Lyrics

We have all been there. We are walking around humming a tune we picked up somewhere, we don’t know where we heard it, what it is called or many of the lyrics. So how can you find out? Here are a couple of ways you can find a song name without knowing all the lyrics.

Music recognition services have been around a little while now. They weren’t that effective in the early days but now they perform very well indeed. From just a couple of seconds of music or a few lyrics, these services can suggest the song name, artist and even album you’re looking for. How cool is that?

Shazam

Shazam has been around a while and is often publicized on TV. It is a mobile app that you install onto your device. Let the app listen to a tune while it is playing and press the Tag button. The app will listen, analyze and provide a title and artist, or a selection of them if it cannot identify the track immediately.

Shazam has a free version that allows you to identify music five times per month. If you want more, you will need the premium version which will run you $4.99. If Shazam fails to identify the track, you are not charged for the attempt.

MusicID

MusicID is very similar to Shazam in that it installs on a mobile device, listens to a tune as it plays and attempts to identify it. It also has a neat SMS feature where you dial a code, record the track and MusicID will message you the result. The app works much the same as Shazam even if it looks different.

Hold your device up so it can ‘hear’ the tune and it will use its database and machine learning to identify the track and artist. The app costs $3 for iOS or that SMS service in the US which does not require an app installation.

Midomi

Midomi differs slightly from Shazam and MusicID in that it does not need to hear the music directly to work. You can sing or hum the tune into your device for it to identify. It doesn’t judge your singing either which is a good thing. You can hold it up to hear the tune like the others though so you don’t actually have to sing or hum in public unless you want to.

Midomi is accessible through an app or via the web. Visit the website, use your microphone to hum a tune and it will identify it for you. It will need around 10 seconds of audio to work properly but seems very accurate.

Siri or Cortana

Both Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana can help identify music too. Siri integrates with Shazam to provide the service while Cortana works with Groove Music to provide answers.

Ask Siri ‘What song is this?’ or ‘Name that tune’ and it will use Shazam to do that very thing and will provide a helpful link to iTunes to make the purchase. Ask Cortana ’What song is this?’ and it will use the Groove Music database to come up with an answer. It will also provide a purchase link.

Musipedia

Musipedia does things differently. The website provides a keyboard, microphone or rhythm recorder to help identify a piece of music. So rather than singing or humming, you can play a few chords, sing if you want to or tap a rhythm while the website listens. It will then use its database to identify it. The strength of Musipedia is in finding classical or older music. It has a few more contemporary tunes in its database but is more a classical specialist.

The website uses Java so newer browsers may not work immediately. Once you enable Java, select a menu item from the top and play, sing or tap when the site is listening.

WatZatSong

WatZatSong uses humans to identify music. It is a community driven website where you upload a piece of music for others to identify on your behalf. You in turn do the same thing to keep the site moving along. It can take longer than the automatic systems on these other sites but is a warmer experience.

Simply record the piece of music you want to identify, go to the site, upload it and users will identify it for you if they can. It is simple but you may have to sift the answers for the correct one.

There are several different ways to find a song name without knowing all the lyrics. Each is a little different and works in slightly different ways. There is sure to be one here you feel comfortable with.

Got any suggestions for other sites that can identify music? Tell us about them below if you do.