Google Introduces an AI Search Feature That Identifies Songs by Whistling, Humming or Singing the Tune

Google has introduced a very helpful AI search feature that uses proprietary music recognition technology that can find a specific song by whistling, humming or singing the tune. The search only requires 10-15 seconds of the tune for recognition. This unique search can be done on different devices, including the Google app, the Google search widget, and on the Google Home.

Starting today, you can hum, whistle, or sing a melody to Google to solve your earworm. On your mobile device, open the latest version of the Google app or find your Google Search widget, tap the mic icon and say “what’s this song?” or click the “Search a song” button. Then start humming for 10-15 seconds. …After you’re finished humming, our machine learning algorithm helps identify potential song matches. And don’t worry, you don’t need perfect pitch to use this feature. We’ll show you the most likely options based on the tune.

The process converts sound into numbers.

When you hum a melody into Search, our machine learning models transform the audio into a number-based sequence representing the song’s melody. Our models are trained to identify songs based on a variety of sources, including humans singing, whistling or humming, as well as studio recordings. The algorithms also take away all the other details, like accompanying instruments and the voice’s timbre and tone. What we’re left with is the song’s number-based sequence, or the fingerprint.