There we were, David and I, working the Saturday night coat check for the Big Apple Ranch country western dance. We volunteered our service and the fee and tips we received were donated to Queer Urban Orchestra (QUO.) Quo is still in its growing stage, and it needs all the funds it can get. No donation too small.

So, as we are listening to the music from the “cloak room”, the DJ plays song that I like but can’t identify the title. David doesn’t know it either, but he does know of a smart-phone application that can identify music. Enter, Shazam!

This app started out as an SMS messaging service in 2002. In all cases, one simply holds the smart phone in the air and Shazam translates the soundwaves into a digital music print and then searches its vast catalog of music for a match. It works just as well as the Tower Records employee who provided me the the result “Love U More” by Sunscreem when I hummed a few bars back in the 1995.

Update 2018: The current version connects with Spotify, so your Shazams (auto-saved results) are added to a Spotify playlist.

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