Midomi

I'm watching American Idol with the family and (sadly) my girl Kady gets reamed by Simon. I liked her performance in as much as it was one of the better slow songs of the night. But the fact is - fuck the slow songs! It's the kiss of death.

Anyway, the American Asian girl chooses a big fat killer song. She's good but my wife and I are remembering the "original" which is better. I tell my daughter I'll find it in my music collection and play it for her.

There are several problems with this promise. One is, it turns out I don't have it. But I don't know that yet because I don't know the name of the song or the original artist. I search the internet for "Believe me" and other bits of the lyrics.

Finally I remember: there is a site where I can hum the music into a microphone and it will figure out the song. After searching some more I discover it is Midomi.com.

I plug in the mic, hum away, and it tells me the song is You Que No Vivo Sin Ti which is obviously the wrong language. (Turns out it is the right song.) The second choice, however, is You Don't Need To Say You Love Me originally by Elvis! That's good enough so I hit Amazon.com's mp3 download service and find one by someone named Dusty Springfield. I recognize the name and I know I should know who she is but I was less than 10 years old in the 60's! I play a sample and that's it. Fucking awesome performance.

$0.99 later it's in my music collection and I'm playing it for my daughter.

My original plan was to visit iTunes and watch the video of the performance which would undoubtedly have the name of the song ... but the performances weren't posted yet - just placeholder art.

I have to give major props to Midomi. You should check it out if it's at all easy to hook up a microphone to your computer.

(Coincidentally the third choice Midomi comes up with is Kelly Clarkson's Breakway.)

w00t.

© 2008 Stephen Clarke-Willson, Ph.D. - All Rights Reserved.