The YouTube Music app lets you listen and search on your Android phone

The YouTube Music app for Android is introducing a feature that’s part Shazam and part friend-friendly if you say, “Hey, what about singing that song at a bar?” This feature allows you to play, whistle, sing or play a recording to find out what it is.

If you have the new feature, a new waveform icon will appear next to the microphone icon that appears when you tap the search button at the top right of the app. Tap on it and the app will start listening. It’s not too shabby! When I tested it, it was able to recognize real recordings very quickly, making it a great alternative to Shazam.

I correctly identified most of the songs I sang, whistled, and hummed on my phone by listening to the hum, but there were some funny glitches:

“It should do”up to“, written by They Might Be Giants.

I was yellowBats from hell“Here from the meatloaf. At least Finnish throwback metal band Reckless Love is at least on the field, so to speak?

I can’t blame too much for the mistake. I pitched them songs that I thought most people wouldn’t pick after humming for a few seconds. Overall, it works fast, perhaps faster than any feature Google Assistant has offered over the years. A search trend has also been noticed on YouTube Music for iOS in recent months, but it doesn’t seem to have caught on there yet.