Published 14:37 IST, October 16th 2020
Google Assistant will now help you find a song by humming the tune to its search
The technology giant Google has introduced a revolutionary update allowing users to find songs by merely humming the tune in search. Read on to know more.
Advertisement
Due to the most recent development by the multinational technology company Google, its users will be able to search a song by merely humming the tone to its search. It looks as though Google realises how frustrating it can be when you can’t remember the name of a song or any of the lyrics but the tune is kind of stuck in your head.
On October 15, Google announced this latest tech development by the company on its official blog, in an article written by Krishna Kumar, Senior Product Manager at Google Search. Read on to know more about this feature.
Hum to Search your song on Google
According to a blog titled “Song stuck in your head? Just hum to search” on Google’s official blog, for this feature, the user is not required to either know the lyrics or the artist’s name, they can just hum, whistle or sing a melody to Google. The user can open the latest version of the Google app or find your Google Search widget, tap the mic icon and say, “what's this song?” They can also click the “Search a song” button and then start humming for 10-15 seconds.
If one is trying to access this feature on Google Assistant, they need to say, “Hey Google, what’s this song?” and then hum the tune. This riveting feature is currently available in English on iOS, and in more than 20 languages on Android. Google also stated that engineers at the company are working to expand this feature to more languages.
After the user is finished humming, Google’s machine learning algorithm will help them in identifying the potential song matches. The user need not worry about having the perfect pitch while humming. A list of three to four songs will appear as options based on the pitch. Then the user can select the best match and explore all other information on the song and artist, and also view any accompanying music videos or listen to the song itself on their favourite music app. They can also find the lyrics and read reviews analysis.
How do the machines learn melodies?
Google has stated in its blog, that song’s melody is like fingerprints for its machines, meaning they each have their own unique identity. Hence, there are learning models, built for machines that match the user’s hum or whistle to the right ‘fingerprint.’ When the user will hum a melody into Search, Google’s machine learning models will transform the audio into a number-based sequence representing the song’s melody.
Google’s machines are trained to identify songs based on a wide variety of sources, these include humans singing, whistling or humming, and studio recordings as well. In fact, the algorithms also take away all the other details of the song such as the accompanying instruments and the voice's timbre and tone. In the end, all that is left is the song’s number-based sequence or the fingerprint.
Image Source: Unsplash
14:37 IST, October 16th 2020