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A low-tech option is to keep at hand a copy of Morgenstern and Barlow’s Dictionary of Musical Themes.[0] Listen for a central theme in the piece that’s playing,

A low-tech option is to keep at hand a copy of Morgenstern and Barlow’s Dictionary of Musical Themes.[0] Listen for a central theme in the piece that’s playing, search for the sequence of notes assuming that it’s in the key of C major or minor, and voilà. There used to be a website that offered a search function for this work, but it went offline some time ago.[1] I really miss it (though I own a printed copy). [0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_Musical_Themes https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Dictionary_of_Musical_Them... [1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20160310085832/http://www.multimedialibrary.com/barlow/index.asp https://web.archive.org/web/20160310085832/http://www.multim...

prvc 6y ago
Peachnote may also be used for the same purpose, but its usefulness is much diminished by their limiting of the length of search queries.
kzrdude 6y ago
Low-tech but but requires some high-end ears
- theobeers 6y ago
  That’s true. I think a lot of people learn solfège in primary school, but then it’s “use it or lose it.”
  - bingerman 6y ago
    The quality of general music teaching in schools varies wildly, and I'm afraid the average experience is not too helpful. As usual, some countries are better than others. Personal anecdote from a medium sized generally pretty average school in Finland: we were never expected or required to know anything about music, the lessons in primary school were just listening the teacher play some simple melodies with piano (we weren't allowed to even try that precious instrument), "singing" random stuff (it was more like shouting, there were never any exercises or guidance), and occasionally listening some pop cds, no exams of any kind (which meant music was our favourite subject after physical education, drawing was pretty popular too).
tgv 6y ago
There's this: https://www.musipedia.org/ https://www.musipedia.org/ I usually go first for the "piano" interface, but the other options can be useful too.
- pb060 6y ago
  It couldn't find some of the songs I tried but it finds interesting similarities. I didn't know that "London bridge is falling down" was based on Bach's BWV1005 for example (or vice-versa).
flurie 6y ago
There is still http://themefinder.org/ http://themefinder.org/, which is passable for obvious stuff and offers a lot of different ways to search.

prvc 6y ago

Peachnote may also be used for the same purpose, but its usefulness is much diminished by their limiting of the length of search queries.

kzrdude 6y ago

Low-tech but but requires some high-end ears

theobeers 6y ago
That’s true. I think a lot of people learn solfège in primary school, but then it’s “use it or lose it.”
- bingerman 6y ago
  The quality of general music teaching in schools varies wildly, and I'm afraid the average experience is not too helpful. As usual, some countries are better than others. Personal anecdote from a medium sized generally pretty average school in Finland: we were never expected or required to know anything about music, the lessons in primary school were just listening the teacher play some simple melodies with piano (we weren't allowed to even try that precious instrument), "singing" random stuff (it was more like shouting, there were never any exercises or guidance), and occasionally listening some pop cds, no exams of any kind (which meant music was our favourite subject after physical education, drawing was pretty popular too).

tgv 6y ago

There's this: https://www.musipedia.org/ https://www.musipedia.org/ I usually go first for the "piano" interface, but the other options can be useful too.

pb060 6y ago
It couldn't find some of the songs I tried but it finds interesting similarities. I didn't know that "London bridge is falling down" was based on Bach's BWV1005 for example (or vice-versa).

flurie 6y ago

There is still http://themefinder.org/ http://themefinder.org/, which is passable for obvious stuff and offers a lot of different ways to search.