New Google Feature Allows You to Hum or Sing the Song You're Trying to Find

Google's new "hum to search" feature allows users to either hum, whistle or sing the song they're trying to find.

Google logo is seen at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.
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Image via Getty/ROBYN BECK/AFP

Google logo is seen at the 2020 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas.

Discovering your new favorite song can be a gift and a curse.

First, you come to that moment of realization where you become that meme of Michael Jackson exclaiming "I love this song." However, once those few, fleeting minutes of pure bliss are over, and you're trying to recapture that feeling by listening to the song again, you're lost because you can only recall the smallest, most insignificant fragments of what you heard. 

There was that recurring part where you can clearly hear the word "love." Then, there's that lyric about being "in the dark." Or, was it, "in the park"? At this point, it feels like all is lost, but that's where the new "hum to search" feature on Google is (hopefully) here to help. 

Per Variety, either open the latest version of the Google app, or Google Search widget, on your mobile device. Tap the mic icon and say "What's this song?" or click the "Search a song" button. Now, you can hum, sing, or whistle the song stuck in your head for 10-15 seconds, and Google will try to figure out the rest. 

"When you hum a melody into Search, our machine learning models transform the audio into a number-based sequence representing the song’s melody," Krishna Kumar, senior product manager for Google Search, explained in a blog post.

While there is understandable skepticism about this feature's ability to provide the correct song title based solely on someone recreating the track through the use of whistling or humming, this tool gives users a chance to reconnect with the song they once thought was long gone. 

Check out Google's video on the "hum to search" feature below. 

View this video on YouTube

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