Experience with apps that can identify a song by you humming it?

[blowtorch]

I know these things have been out there for awhile, google tells me shazam and soundhoud are sorta popular...
I'm wondering if anyone has used any of this kind of thing, and, also whether you can play a melody into them via guitar or piano and get any decent result.

Once in a great while there's a song that I can't remember any bit of lyrics, what group did it, nothing but a snatch of melody, and I think something like this might come in handy for those rare times

Thanks

 

[Old Tele man]

NAME THAT TUNE...in 3 notes or less! !

 

[blowtorch]

NAME THAT TUNE...in 3 notes or less! !

Some years back I had a riff stuck in my head for about a month and a half , and no one could identify it for me, until one night at practice for a garage punk band of mine, I played the riff and asked if anyone recognized it, Kyle the drummer said cheerfully "yeah that's 20th Century Boy!"

boy did i feel dumb
More recently the same thing happened to me with Hendrix's 3rd Stone from the Sun, that signature mostly descending riff. But, I knew that one was Jimi, so, I wasn't too worried, I knew I'd stumble across it sooner or later

 

[haggardfan1]

So an app that understands we don't know the words? I love it already.

 

[blowtorch]

So an app that understands we don't know the words? I love it already.

It's easy when you know a bit of the lyrics, you just type or speak them into the google machine and whalaa, song title and (usually) artist, right there.

Not so easy when all you have is a riff or a bit of a melody

 

[xgritzx]

I've tried it with Shazam so many times. no luck. but I may just be that bad.

 

[Peregrino69]

At least Soundhound requires a decent chunk of material before it can identify the tune. I just tested for sheets and giggles, it wasn't able to identify Crazy Train guitar riff when I hummed it.

It can usually do a decent job identifying a song playing on a radio or bar music system. It can even identify cover versions. It's obviously depending on a database so something obscure may be too much... it did just now identify Focus's Hocus Pocus, Van Der Graaf Generator's Killer, Larkin Poe's Fly Like an Eagle and Tuomari Nurmio's Pinemoor Cemetery, but failed Nuspirit Helsinki's Skydive.

I've not tested Shazam, but I have a hunch it has about the same capabilities and limitations.

 

[blowtorch]

That doesn't sound too encouraging. My current "what's that song?" is certainly more obscure than Ozzy, and, I only have a bit of the melody