Editor’s note: This blog is part of a series of guest posts from my social media students at Eastern Michigan University. Follow the conversations at #sm379 and @ginaluttrell.

Soundhound by Chelsea Mayer

How many times have you been out shopping, driving in the car, or watching TV, and heard a song you like. But there’s a problem, you’ve never heard this song before and there’s no one there to tell you what this mystery song is. So sadly you’re stuck wondering, “what’s the name of this song?” and “who sings this?” with little luck of downloading this awesome new music you’ve just discovered. Ultimately you have two options: 1) You could go the old route and try and memorize as many of the lyrics as you can then type them all in to Google to see if anything pops up, or 2) you could just do what I’ve done and download the SoundHound app.

SoundHound is an app that can be downloaded to your smartphone or tablet and is conveniently available in the App Store, Google Play, Blackberry World, and the Windows store! It’s easy to use and absolutely FREE!!

Here’s how is works:

1. You’re out living your life and you hear a song you like. You may have heard it in a commercial on TV, on the radio in your car, playing over the intercom in a store or maybe at an event, either way you need to know the name of this song and fast.

2. You pull out your smartphone or tablet and open up the SoundHound app

3.You click the giant orange SoundHound button on the screen and you let your device start listening

4. Wait about 30 seconds and your device will analyze the sounds it picks up and pop up with the results it finds.

5. The app will show you the name of the song, the artist who sings it, the name of the album it is from and an option to instantly download the song.

6. And if you don’t want to download it right then and there, don’t worry! Your SoundHound search will automatically be saved to a list in your app of recently searched songs so you can come back to it later.

7. Now maybe you can’t get your app up fast enough and you miss the song, or you want to know the name of a song you heard earlier. Well don’t worry because if you can remember enough of the song to hum or sing it into your device, SoundHound can even analyze you’re humming and singing!

 

SoundHound is simply a music lover’s dream. And not only does it recognize music and help you identify new songs but it also has many other cool features. Aside from your own personal saved searches list SoundHound also has a Charts tab. The Charts tab is a place where SoundHound compiles a list of; the hottest songs at the moment, top SoundHound discoveries by others, most tweeted songs, etc. All the songs listed in the charts also have a play option, which allow you to listen to a snippet of the song to see if you like it.

SoundHound also automatically contains all of the music previously downloaded to your device and functions as a place to search and listen to your music just like another iTunes. But this library has a few more cool features then your iTunes does. When you listen to your music through your SoundHound app you can see the lyrics to your songs scrolling along with your music on the screen. Another awesome advantage to listening to your music through your SoundHound library is you can instantly share the songs you’re listening to with friends through email, message, Twitter, or Facebook by just the click of a button.

 

Not only is SoundHound great for personal use, but PR, Social Media, Marketing, and Advertising professionals can all benefit from it as well. SoundHound allows professionals to discover hot new music, artists, and albums that can be used for media and promotional outlets. The Charts tab allows professionals to see what’s hot and what’s being talked about, and the share option allows music to instantly be shared with both followers and other professionals in the field.

Overall here’s how SoundHound pans out:

Pros:

Allows you to discover new music and artists

• It’s fast and easy to use
• It’s available for both smartphones and tablets and can be downloaded from the App store, Google Play, Blackberry World, and the Windows store.
• It’s FREE to download!
• Saves all your searches automatically
• Gives you the option to instantly download music to your device
•  Gives you the option to share your music through email, message, Twitter and Facebook.
• Shows live lyrics to your music
• Shows you other music that’s popular at the moment
•  Allows you to search music using your own voice.

Cons:

• Doesn’t always work if there is too much other noise around your device while it’s trying to listen and analyze.
• Doesn’t recognize EVERY song, only those available for download somewhere.
• You have to be able to sing/hum the song correctly in order for it to recognize what song you’re trying to find. (doesn’t work if  you’re a bad singer)
• Doesn’t show scrolling lyrics to ALL of your songs.