Going for a song

RMIT University’s  Dr Sandra Uitdenbogerd is developing software that will enable people to do online searches for songs simply by singing into the computer.

Dr Uitdenbogerd is working on the music retrieval technology with RMIT School of Computer Science and IT colleagues, Associate Professor Vic Ciesielski and Dr Falk Scholer, as well as RMIT undergraduate and research students.

An internet connection, a microphone, the relevant software and a half-way decent singing voice are the only tools the end user needs.

The ease with which the software can be used belies the complexity of the underlying code and the exhaustive research and development of the software. Dr Uitdenbogerd predicts it is about three to four years away from being available for commercial use.

However, significant progress has been made. Dr Uitdenbogerd said that the software had been developed to the point where working prototypes existed that allowed users to search for songs in basic MIDI format.