Shazam

Even for the seasoned listener, hearing a classical music piece can often be almost impossible to identify. A new service offered by Shazam promises to name the piece of music you hear by holding the microphone of your mobile devise to the sound source. However, as wonderful as that may be, it has its limitations within the classical music realm.

How Shazam Works

I discovered Shazam while browsing the new applications store on my iPhone. Don't worry, if you do not have an iPhone Shazam will also work on other mobile phones. To identify a piece of music simply hold your phone to the source of the music. Once Shazam samples enough of the music to find a match within its 4 million song data base, it will tell you the name of the album, track, artist, and more.

Shazam and Classical Music

I've tested the service multiple times. It easily identifies main stream artists from many music genres, however, it is unable to match many of the classical pieces I threw its way (Debussy, Berlioz, and even Hayden). Though the service is almost a dream come true, properly identifying a classical work remains elusive for now.