Tag, Listen and Maybe Download your new discovered jam
Tag and listen to music instantly with the help of these two awesome apps, Shazam and Soundcloud. Have you have ever heard a song playing in a club, matatu or even the streets and it pleased you? Chances are that its not even once but a couple of times that you wish you knew the name of the song and the artist too. So yesterday I was in a Minibus with a decent sound setup with this reggea song making the subs at the back thump like no ones business. I didn’t know what the song was but luckily I had shazam.
Here comes shazam to the rescue, First tag it
Shazam is a mobile application that recognizes music. All I needed to do at the time the song was playing was just to launch the app and click on the Shazam icon. The app captured the sound, turned it into a digital format and compared it to the millions of tracks on thier database, after which the name artist and song was be displayed on my screen. Shazam did all that in less than 30 seconds.
Shazam has been used 10 billion times in its lifetime, just to show you how popular shazam is. The app is available on Google playstore.
Shazam can give you the song name, artists name, riddim name and a chance to buy the music and get more info but not download it. Its great that the tags are saved for future references but if you’d like to listen to that song that you have just tagged, then use Soundcloud.
The tags are stored so that you can view them at a later date. If you are using Shazam on an android device, you will even have a chance of viewing the video or taking a look at the lyrics. Shazam has its own place where you can click and listen to the track already tagged instantly but I prefer another app for that.
The perfect music streaming app
Soundcloud on the other hand is a music streaming app. Picture it as the most trustworthy and obedient DJ there is out there. To use sound cloud is easy just search for the song you have just tagged using Shazam and start listening to it (again) in no time at all. (It can be any song that comes into your head, provided it exists.)
Soundcloud can also be used on a PC or by using the mobile version on your Smartphone, you do not need to download the app. Have you ever commented on a song? Soundcloud gives you the chance to comment on any track you are listening to and place the comment on the exact time of the track. If you watch as the track plays on a PC or laptop, you can see all the peoples comments as the song progresses. So to know haw popular a song is to other peers, just check the number of miniature icons below the song.
It even gets better
After your favourite song has finished playing, Soundcloud can play similar music. It’s usually from the same artist or the person who uploaded the track to sound cloud. You can even download the track if the user has allowed that feature. An iTunes link is also included on most songs on Soundcloud but I am yet to know of any Kenyan that lives in Kenya and buys music from iTunes. And this brings us to the following question
So how do you download your music?
And I don’t mean buy. Please share your method on the comments section below. By the way the song I talked about earlier was By your side by Ghost.
Some pointers
Shazam can also recognize movies as well, if you’ve ever stumbled on a movie you liked but didn’t know its name, just launch Shazam and place your phone near the speaker.
Shazam can work on EDGE internet as well as 3G internet but it’s a must Soundcloud use 3G for it to function properly.