Query by humming

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 or whistled melody (input query) and comparing it to an existing database. 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 with a built-in microphone that allows for faster searching through media files.

The MPEG-7 standard includes provisions for QbH music searches.

Examples of QbH systems include ACRCloud, SoundHound, Musipedia, Tunebot and Google Search.

• Comprehensive list of Music Information Retrieval systems (apparently last updated ca 2003) at the Wayback Machine (archived December 21, 2008)
• Query By Humming – Musical Information Retrieval in an Audio Database, paper by Asif Ghias, Jonathan Logan, David Chamberlin, Brian C. Smith; ACM Multimedia 1995
• A survey presentation of QBH by Eugene Weinstein, 2006
• The New Zealand Digital Library MELody inDEX, article by Rodger J. McNab, Lloyd A. Smith, David Bainbridge and Ian H. Witten; D-Lib Magazine 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
• Can't Find the Name of a Song? Just Hum or Whistle the Melody to Google (PCMag, Michael Kan, October 15, 2020)