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Find a song with audio recognition apps, lyric look-ups, or music charts
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Nothing is quite so frustrating as having a song you can't remember the name of stuck in your head. But even if you only know a couple of lyrics or can hum a brief song bar, all is not lost! Utilize search engines or music recognition websites to find your lost song and be able to name that tune in just a few minutes.

Quick Ways to Find a Song without Knowing the Name

  1. Use Shazam to identify songs that are currently playing near you.
  2. Search lyrics into Genius.com, which has a massive song database.
  3. Hum or sing a song’s melody into Soundhound if you don’t remember the lyrics.
  4. Go on Musipedia to find songs by playing the notes into their virtual keyboard.
  5. Post on WatDatSong, a forum where music lovers help each other find songs.
1

Google Search Engine

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  1. Type in any phrase or lyric you remember from the song. Use quotation marks around specific phrases to narrow your search, e.g., “destiny is calling me” or “wish we could turn back time.”[1]
    • Avoid excessively searching common words like "the," "and," "or," "but," which will clog up your results.
    • Add context to your search terms if you can. If you heard the song in a specific TV show or movie, for example, you might search for something like “song playing during the credits of Grey's Anatomy season six.”
    • Try alternate spellings of any names or words in your remembered lyrics. For example, try “Zach” instead of “Zack” or “tonite” instead of “tonight.”
    • Narrow down your search with advanced search engine options, such as limiting your search to pages released within a certain year or only showing results that contain all the words included.
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  1. Open the Shazam app on your phone or desktop. Hold your device near the speaker that the song is playing from and hit the Tag button.[2]
    • If the song you want to identify is a pre-recorded song available on streaming platforms, Shazam should be able to find its name within seconds.
    • Along with the song’s name, Shazam will tell you the song’s album, artist, and where you can download or stream it.
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6

Google Assistant

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  1. Go to the AudioTag website and click Upload File. Upload a 15-45-second snippet of the song recording from your device. The program will compare the audio to its music database and find the track title for you.[8]
    • AudioTag is a great tool if you were able to record a portion of the song on your smartphone but didn’t have access to an audio recognition tool at the time.
    • For example, perhaps you heard a song playing at a park and wanted to know the name but didn’t have enough time to download and use an app like Shazam.
    • Instead, you can quickly pull out your phone to make an audio recording of the song and upload it to AudioTag later.
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10

Musipedia

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  1. Once on the Musipedia home page, click Keyboard Search. Enter the notes of your song’s melody as they would be played on the piano. If you know any lyrics or words included in the song, type them into the “Keywords and/or ‘search phrases’” box.[9]
    • Click Search Musipedia to see a list of songs that match the notes you chose.
    • Musipedia is most useful for finding the names of classical or instrumental songs.
    • The site can also identify all music that contains the melody you’ve recorded, as opposed to most song recognition programs that can only recognize songs that exactly match the recording.
14

Music Charts

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  1. If you've heard this song on a "Top 40" or "Greatest Hits" channel, you might have luck checking top music charts. Check music charts from your city or country for the best results. Popular charts include Billboard, Official Charts, and BBC Radio 1.
    • Some songs are popular within a specific subculture but otherwise unknown—look at genre-specific charts for country, rap, Latin, and other genres.
    • Similarly, look for unknown “oldies” by searching through charts from earlier generations.
    • Billboard allows users to view the Top 100 list from 1953 onward. Other sites have cataloged Top 100 lists from as early as 1940.

Community Q&A

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  • Question
    What's the best way for me to find the name of a song I don't know?
    Community Answer
    Community Answer
    Type some of the lyrics into Google and there's a good chance the song will pop up.
  • Question
    How can I find out the name of a song with no lyrics?
    Community Answer
    Community Answer
    Try to figure out who wrote it based on the instrumentals. For example: decide if it's instrumental rock, country, hip hop, rap, etc. and try to listen to the tone and look for the song.
  • Question
    How can I find a song of which I only remember the video clip?
    Community Answer
    Community Answer
    if you remember what was happening in the video clip, try to search for what action that was taking place in the video or the location where the video was made.
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Tips

  • If you've found the lyrics but don't recognize the specific song, you may have initially heard a cover. Search for cover songs until you find the version you recall.
  • If you want to download a song after looking it up, search the song name and Google and look at the apps under the Listen header.
  • Some of the music recognition apps may also tell you where to purchase or download the song. The Shazam app even lets you purchase and download songs correctly.
Show More Tips

Tips from our Readers

  • If the song is a trap song or a song that don't have any lyrics, try paying attention to the beats to help decipher the song name.
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About This Article

Sophie Burkholder, BA
Co-authored by:
wikiHow Staff Writer
This article was co-authored by wikiHow staff writer, Sophie Burkholder, BA. Sophie Burkholder graduated from Boston University in 2020 with dual degrees in Spanish and Modern Foreign Language Education. For three years, Sophie worked as a classroom teacher and strived to foster a love of learning and self-empowerment in her students. With that same purpose but a new audience, she now writes for the content team at wikiHow. She's passionate about giving readers the tools they need for any goal, big or small. This article has been viewed 413,777 times.
1 votes - 100%
Co-authors: 48
Updated: April 22, 2024
Views: 413,777
Categories: Songs
Article SummaryX

To find a song you don't know the name of, start by visiting a music recognition website, like Midomi or Tunebot. Then, sing or hum the melody of the song into your computer's microphone and wait for the website to match the melody with a song in its database. If you know some of the lyrics to the song, try entering them into an advanced search option on a search engine, or post them on a music forum, like Name My Tune, and ask if anyone knows what song it is. To learn how to find a song using music recognition apps on your phone, scroll down!

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Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 413,777 times.

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