Midomi Does A Shazam For Live Music

Midomi recognizes live music – even if you and I hum it! And, given my modest singing capabilities, it seems to be doing a good job of this!!

Available on PC and iPhone, Midomi records ten or more seconds of the song you hum and gets back within seconds with a list of guesses.

I began my test drive of Midomi by humming the opening bars of Stairway To Heaven by Led Zeppellin. Midomi got it right.

Encouraged by this success, I hummed the opening bars of a few more songs selected from the list of my favorite songs one after the other. Here are the results.

#	Track	Artist	Genre	MIDOMI Result Round 1	MIDOMI Result Round 2
2.	Can’t Find My Way Home	Blind Faith	Rock	FAIL
4.	Children of Sanchez	Chuck Mangione	Jazz	FAIL
5.	Land Of Make Believe	Chuck Mangione	Jazz	FAIL
6.	Take Five	Dave Brubeck	Jazz	FAIL	FAIL
7.	From The Beginning	ELP	Rock	FAIL
8.	Take A Pebble	ELP	Rock	FAIL	FAIL
10.	Thick As A Brick	Jethro Tull	Rock	FAIL	FAIL
11.	Dun Ringill	Jethro Tull	Rock	FAIL
15.	One White Duck	Jethro Tull	Rock	FAIL
17.	Skating Away	Jethro Tull	Rock	FAIL
20.	Moonchild	King Crimson	Rock	PASS
21.	Stairway To Heaven	Led Zeppelin	Rock	PASS	PASS
22.	I Love New York	Madonna	Pop	PASS
23.	Dark Side Of The Moon	Pink Floyd	Rock	PASS
24.	Wish You Were Here	Pink Floyd	Rock	PASS
25.	Behind Blue Eyes	WHO	Rock	PASS
	PASS RATE	37.5%		PASS = 6; FAIL = 10

 

When I noticed many PASS results after  a series of FAILs, I started wondering if Midomi was able to “train” itself to understand my voice better over a period of time. This was evidently not the case since the results didn’t change when I made a second attempt with a few songs. 

While a 37.5% PASS rate might not be worth writing home about, the following facts should be borne in mind before judging Midomi. Midomi is a newly launched service still in BETA and its recognition rate is likely to improve over time as it accumulates a larger collection of songs; besides, the ability of Midomi to recognize a song https://klonopinshop.com depends very much on how well you hum it –  I may be humming what I think is Jethro Tull’s Thick As A Brick, others may not agree, so Midomi can’t be faulted for getting it wrong!

Midomi reminded me of Shazam, a UK-based mobile phone based service that recognized recorded music when I tried it a few years ago.  In a blog post at the time, I’d written about how Shazam had correctly recognized Gift of Roses by Jethro Tull. Just for comparison, I tried humming this song on Midomi – it failed to recognize it.

It has to be noted that, then, as well as now, Shazam recognizes only recorded music. Unlike Midomi, Shazam doesn’t recognize live music let alone songs hummed by you and me.

Let me offer a couple of suggestions for Midomi.

After failing to recognize a song, Midomi should ask the singer to issue a PASS / FAIL verdict immediately. In case of FAIL results, if Midomi asks the singer to enter the correct song details right then, it will be able to enrich its collection much faster than through its present method of calling users for a separate recording. As noted earlier, a rich collection of pre-recognized songs is a critical success factor for Midomi going forward as it seeks to improve its recognition rate.

When Midomi correctly guesses a song, it should issue a badge of recognition (pun intended!), which you could wear with pride to silence your critics (spouse / parents / children / friends) who keep accusing you of mutilating songs you believe you’ve hummed correctly.