Steve PMHWhat comes to your mind when you hear the word ‘Shazam’?
From the experiments I did on those around me, I concluded that there are two kinds of people in this world: those who picture Captain Marvel and those who think of the music identification app.
If you belong to the second set, then this article is for you! And hey, if your first thought is the superhero, you can use this article to get to know another Shazam!
Today, I’ll be explaining what the music-related Shazam is, how it works, and where it comes from.
I’ll also be discussing the details of the features that Shazam offers both for listeners and artists.
What Is Shazam?
Shazam is an app that specializes in identifying music playing around you.
Whether it’s a song you heard in a store while shopping, on the radio while driving, or even in a movie or series, Shazam is designed to pinpoint whatever you’re listening to.
Once you trigger the app’s algorithm on your smart device by tapping its logo and holding it close to the audio source for a few seconds, the app will magically (it’s all tech really) recognize the song and tell you its name and the artist performing it.
How Does Shazam Work?
As I mentioned above, Shazam is a mobile app that recognizes music being played through external sources. But how exactly does Shazam identify this music?
Well, there are two ways I can answer this question.
The simple approach is to say that Shazam picks up the audio, generates a digital fingerprint of it, then compares this fingerprint against millions of other fingerprints in the app’s massive library to single out the track that matches it.
Once the process is complete -which takes a few seconds- the app displays the song’s name and its artist along with additional information such as lyrics, video, and tickets for upcoming concerts.
As for the more sophisticated version of the answer, it goes like the following:
- The app forms a spectrogram of the audio it picks up, which is a graph representing the frequency of the sound over a certain period of seconds.
- Once the spectrogram is created, the app locates peaks throughout it. These peaks are the highest (loudest) frequencies present in the spectrogram and are fundamental to generating a digital fingerprint for the audio.
- With the peaks located and isolated, the app hashes them to calculate a more refined and accurate fingerprint of the audio. Hashing is basically grouping frequency peaks to build a more complete fingerprint.
- If the app is registering the audio in its database, then it’ll store the created hashes within its database for future reference. But if the app is trying to identify the audio, it’ll pull up all the hashes from its database that most match that audio’s hashed fingerprint.
- From this point, the app’s algorithm will check each potential match to determine which one is the truest match. This happens by calculating the time the hash appears in the original song against the time the hash appears in the sample for each potential match.
- After that, the resulting values of the track time – sample time are charted as a histogram. The biggest bar in the histogram corresponds to the highest score.
- The app returns to the user with the track that showed the highest score as the final result.
Who Owns Shazam?
On September 24, 2018, Apple announced that Shazam officially became part of the technology company.
So as of then, Apple has been the owner of Shazam, but what about the app’s history before this $400-million acquisition?
The beginning was in 1999 when a pair of college students who went to the University of California, Berkeley founded Shazam Entertainment Limited.
Interestingly enough, Shazam started in the United Kingdom as a service via phone calls.
In 2002, if you’d dialed ‘2580’ on your phone and held it up close to a music piece being played then ended the call, you’d receive a text message shortly after telling you what the song is called and who the artist is.
The same year marked the introduction of Shazam to the United States, particularly through the collaboration between AT&T and Musicphone.
Then in 2008, the Shazam app became one of the very first apps to join Apple’s new App Store and it allowed users to move to iTunes after identifying a song in case they wanted to buy it.
2011 was the year that Shazam started adding more features to the app and really built it into its shape today.
The app wasn’t just limited to recognizing music anymore, but it could also identify TV shows, series, and ads to help you know more about what you’re watching.
Shazam also joined forces with many platforms like Snapchat, Saavn, Sun Broadcast Group, and National CineMedia to give users a better experience.
Shazam continued to gain popularity and by the time Apple had acquired it in 2018, the app already had been downloaded more than 1 billion times across the globe with more than 20 million identifications being completed every day.
Shazam Features for Listeners
The following are the main features that Shazam offers for listeners on both Apple and Android devices.
Identifying Music Using the Shazam App
Using the Shazam app to recognize a track that’s playing around you is the classic way to get the job done.
Even if you’re wearing headphones/earbuds and a song is playing in different apps, you can use Shazam to identify it.
The process here is pretty much the same for both Apple and Android devices. It goes like this:
- You open the Shazam app on your smart device then hit the logo button. If you’ve never used Shazam before, you’ll need to grant the app access to your microphone and location by following the instructions on the screen.
- Once Shazam recognizes the song, it’s automatically saved to your app’s library.
One of the best features of Shazam is that the app will continue to work even if you’re offline.
The secret is that the app will remember your request and still generate a digital fingerprint for the audio sample.
Then, when your internet connection is restored, the app will run its algorithm to find the matching song.
Identifying Music Using Auto Shazam
Auto Shazam is a feature that enables the Shazam app to recognize tracks playing in your environment automatically without you having to open the app and tap the logo button.
Even if your smart device is locked or you’re browsing different apps.
Once again, the process of activating Auto Shazam is similar in Apple and Android devices as follows:
- You open the Shazam app on your smart device.
- Tap and hold the Shazam logo button.
Now Auto Shazam is enabled and the app will do its job in the background.
So while you have Auto Shazam mode on, whatever music you’re listening to is automatically compared against the tracks in Shazam’s database to find matches.
When you open the Shazam app to check on your identified songs, you’ll find them all in your device’s music library categorized according to the date of recognition.
You may be reading this and getting worried about Shazam listening into your conversations or audio history and storing whatever it picks up.
But Apple has addressed this concern and assured users in their privacy policies that this doesn’t happen.
If you want to disable the Auto Shazam mode, you can either open the app and tap the Shazam logo button or locate the red time display icon in the top left corner of the screen if you’re in another app or on the home screen.
Just tap that icon and then tap the Shazam logo button when it appears.
Additional Shazam Features on Apple Devices
Next are a couple of iOS-specific features for using Shazam to recognize music:
Identifying Music Using Control Center
Before going any further, note that this feature is available on Apple devices with iOS 14.2 or newer. So if your device has an older iOS, be sure to update it if possible.
That said, Shazam on Apple devices (iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad) allows users to identify songs just as quickly as they can adjust their screen brightness or volume or enter airplane or battery-saving modes.
This is possible by adding a shortcut Shazam control to the Control Center.
So whenever there’s music playing around you or in an app on your device (Youtube, TikTok, Instagram, and so on), you can instantly figure it out.
Honestly, this is great for those short videos with seconds of catchy music that remain stuck in your head for days after!
Anyway, here’s how you can activate this feature on your Apple device:
- First, make sure the Control Center on your device has the Music Recognition control
- Then, tap the shazam logo icon from the Control Center. This should trigger the recognized track to pop up as a notification in the Control Center.
- From there, you can either touch the notification to open the Shazam app to view the track screen, or tap and hold the notification to see the cover art then tap it to access the track screen in the app or play the song by tapping Listen on Apple Music.
It’s also worth mentioning that Shazam has a recognition history for songs that were recently identified by the app.
If you want to view this history, tap and hold the Shazam logo icon in the Control Center.
You can then choose to open the track screen of any song in-app. You can also delete any track by swiping left.
Identifying Music Using a Widget
If you’re into using widgets, you’ll love the fact that you can add a Shazam widget to your Apple device home screen or Today View. This boosts the convenience of the service for music lovers.
Additional Shazam Features on Android Devices
Next are a couple of Android-specific features for using Shazam to recognize music:
Identifying Music Using Notifications
Notifications in your Android device can give you the shortcut you need for recognizing music wherever you are or while browsing other apps.
All you need is to open the notification bar to view Shazam’s notification then tap it to run its algorithm and identify the track.
You can turn off this feature from the app’s settings by disabling ‘Shazam from notification bar.’
Identifying Music Using Pop-Up Shazam
If you’re familiar with Messenger’s pop-up bubble, Shazam uses a similar idea to help you identify music as quickly as you can chat with your friends!
To enable this feature, open the Library from the Shazam app then touch the Settings icon and switch on the ‘Shazam from Pop-Up’ option.
Using this pop-up feature, you can run Shazam over other apps. To close it, just drag the pop-up to the bottom of the screen until it reaches the ‘X’ icon.
Can You Listen to Music From Shazam?
Unfortunately, you can’t listen to music from the Shazam app, but there’s a way it can connect you to another app that can!
While you can’t listen to songs directly from the Shazam app, if you use an Apple device, the app can redirect you to Spotify or Apple Music to listen to the full tracks of your discoveries.
Here’s how:
Spotify
For this method to work, you need to install Spotify on your Apple device and subscribe to its services.
From there, you’ll need to open the Shazam app on your Apple device then go to the bottom of the screen and select ‘My Music’.
You should see a gear symbol, tap it then choose ‘Connect next to Spotify’.
- If you’re already connected to Apple Music, a pop-up notification will appear saying ‘Connect to Spotify’. If so, tap this option.
- After you complete the on-screen instructions, you’ll become connected. This will also enable the switch for ‘Sync Shazams to Spotify’.
- If you turn the sync on, whatever songs you discover will be added automatically to a playlist called ‘My Shazam Tracks’ on Spotify.
Once connected to Spotify, you can play the songs you use Shazam to recognize.
You’ll just need to open the Shazam app on your Apple device then go to the bottom of the screen and select ‘My Music’
After that, you hit the 3 vertical dots next to any Shazam then choose ‘Open in Spotify’. You can also tap any Shazam you want and select ‘Open’ or ‘Spotify’.
Alternatively, you can tap and hold your Shazam then choose ‘Open in Spotify’.
Apple Music
Did you know that Shazam offers Apple users up to 3 months of free access to Apple Music? It’s true, you only need to scan a QR code!
That said, if you subscribe to Apple Music, you can have Shazam redirect you to the Music app to play your identified songs.
Simply pull up the Shazam app on your Apple device then go to the bottom of the screen and choose ‘My Music’.
From here, you can either choose a recent Shazam then hit the Apple Music logo or ‘Open’, or tap the 3 vertical dots next to any Shazam and choose ‘Open in Apple Music’.
Alternatively, you can tap and hold your Shazam then select ‘Open in Apple Music’.
Yes, you can bet on it! After all, what’s good music without being able to enjoy it with your loved ones?
Shazam lets you share your findings in a wide selection of apps including Twitter, Instagram, Mail, and more. Here’s how:
- Open the Shazam app on your smart device.
- At the bottom of the app screen, choose ‘My Music’.
From this point, there are 4 ways you can share your Shazams in other apps as follows:
- Tap and hold the Shazam you want to share, hit ‘Share’, and select the app you want.
- Tap the Shazam you want to share to open its corresponding track screen, choose ‘Share Song’, and select the app you want.
- Tap the 3 dots next to the Shazam you want to share, hit the little box with the arrow inside, then select the app you want.
- Tap the Shazam you want to share to open its corresponding track screen, hit the 3 dots, hit the little box with the arrow inside, then select the app you want.
Besides sharing Shazams in other apps, you can use Snapchat to Shazam then share your discoveries in the same go.
Before you follow the steps below, make sure you’ve granted the Snapchat app access to your device’s microphone via App Settings.
- Open the Snapchat app on your Apple smart device
- Tap and hold the camera screen.
- You should notice music notes moving around your finger as Shazam records the audio.
- After a few seconds, the title of the song will pop up on the screen.
- From there, choose ‘Song Info’, hit the little box with the arrow inside or the 3 horizontal dots, then select your sharing preference.
