NAIROBI, Kenya- The Android YouTube Music app is rolling out an exciting new feature that’s part Shazam and part your musical best friend.
Ever find yourself wondering, “Hey, what’s that song that goes…” before you start humming a tune?
Now, YouTube Music has you covered. This innovative feature allows you to hum, whistle, sing, or play a recording of a song to figure out what it is.
How It Works
Once you have the new feature, you’ll notice a fresh waveform icon next to the microphone icon when you tap the search button in the upper right corner of the app.
Just tap this new icon, and the app starts listening.
It’s impressively quick and accurate. During tests, it identified actual recordings at lightning speed, making it a formidable competitor to Shazam.
Accurate and Fun
When users tried humming, the app accurately picked out most of the songs, whistled, and hummed.
There were a few funny misses, but you can’t fault it too much. Some of the tunes thrown at it were pretty obscure, ones that most people wouldn’t recognize from a few seconds of humming.
Overall, it performs admirably, even faster than the similar feature Google Assistant has had for years.
It’s worth noting that the humming search feature has also been spotted in YouTube Music for iOS recently, although it hasn’t rolled out widely there yet.
Seamless Integration
The new hum-to-search feature is integrated seamlessly into YouTube Music for Android.
The feature can be found in app version 7.02 and is represented by a new waveform icon at the top-right corner of the screen, right next to the microphone icon.
Tapping this icon opens up a vibrant new page that prompts you to “Play, sing, or hum a song.”
After a successful search, it displays details such as the song title, artist, year, album, and artwork, with options to either ‘Play’ or ‘Save’ the song.
Powered by AI
According to a report by 9to5Google, this feature leverages AI to match the sound to the original recording.
It works similarly to the hum-to-search feature on the Google Search app, which was introduced in 2020.
This functionality allows users to hum songs to search for them in over 20 languages on both Android and iOS devices.
Google emphasizes that you don’t need perfect pitch for this feature to work. A song’s melody is its unique identity, and the app converts this melody into a number-based sequence to find matches.
YouTube Music for Android’s new hum-to-search feature is a game-changer, making song identification easier and more accessible than ever.
Whether you’re a casual listener or a music enthusiast in Africa, this tool will enhance your ability to discover and enjoy music.
So next time you have a tune stuck in your head, just hum it out on YouTube Music and let the app do the rest.
