Query by humming (QbH) is a music retrieval system that branches off the original classification systems of title, artist, composer, and genre. It normally applies to songs or other music with a distinct single theme or melody. The system involves taking a user-hummed

melody A melody (from Greek μελῳδία, ''melōidía'', "singing, chanting"), also tune, voice or line, is a linear succession of musical tones that the listener perceives as a single entity. In its most literal sense, a melody is a combina ...

(input query) and comparing it to an existing

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases spa ...

. The system then returns a ranked list of music closest to the input query. One example of this would be a system involving a

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) (also including the related digital audio player (DAP)) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. The data is typically stored ...

with a built-in

microphone A microphone, colloquially called a mic or mike (), is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Microphones are used in many applications such as telephones, hearing aids, public address systems for concert halls and pub ...

that allows for faster

searching Searching or search may refer to: Computing technology * Search algorithm, including keyword search ** :Search algorithms * Search and optimization for problem solving in artificial intelligence * Search engine technology, software for findi ...

through

media Media may refer to: Communication * Media (communication), tools used to deliver information or data ** Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising ** Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass el ...

files. The

MPEG-7 MPEG-7 is a multimedia content description standard. It was standardized in ISO/ IEC 15938 (Multimedia content description interface). This description will be associated with the content itself, to allow fast and efficient searching for material ...

standard includes provisions for QbH music searches. Examples of QbH systems include

ACRCloud ACRCloud (Formerly Syntec TV) is an automatic content recognition platform based on acoustic fingerprinting technology. Its creator intended to help media, broadcasters and app developers to identify, monitor and monetize content on the second sc ...

SoundHound SoundHound Inc. is an audio and speech recognition company founded in 2005. It develops speech recognition, natural language understanding, sound recognition and search technologies. Its featured products include Houndify, a Voice AI developer p ...

, Musipedia, and

Tunebot Tunebot is a music search engine developed by the Interactive Audio Lab at Northwestern University. Users can search the database by humming or singing a melody into a microphone, playing the melody on a virtual keyboard, or by typing some of the l ...

External links

Online demos

ACRCloud SDKs

SoundHound (mobile app)

from Musipedia
QbH research project at NYU

Query by Humming at Sloud IncQbH applet (Active X)

MaART at Sourceforge

Tunebot at Northwestern University

General info and articles

* {{webarchive , url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081221191111/http://mirsystems.info/index.php?id=mirsystems , date=December 21, 2008 , title=Comprehensive list of Music Information Retrieval systems (apparently last updated ca 2003)

paper by Asif Ghias, Jonathan Logan, David Chamberlin, Brian C. Smith; ACM Multimedia 1995
A survey presentation of QBH by Eugene Weinstein, 2006

article by Rodger J. McNab, Lloyd A. Smith, David Bainbridge and Ian H. Witten;

D-Lib Magazine ''D-Lib Magazine'' was an online magazine dedicated to digital library research and development. Past issues are available free of charge. The publication was financially supported by contributions from the D-Lib Alliance. Prior to April 2006, t ...

1997
Name that Tune: A Pilot Study in Finding a Melody from a Sung Query
article by Bryan Pardo, Jonah Shifrin, and William Birmingham, Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, vol. 55 (4), pp. 283-300, 2004 Acoustic fingerprinting Music search engines Voice technology