Many times I have half-remembered a song lyric from somewhere. Who sang that tune? How did it go? Easy . . . type any phrase I can recall into a search engine, and soon I have the whole song’s lyrics.
But what about when I have a fragment of tune in my memory, and can’t think of where it came from? It’s driving me crazy. but there’s no way to search for it. Don’t you wish some genius would invent a melody search engine? You could download software with a keyboard on it and click on the keys to input the outline of the tune. The search engine could then use heuristic methods to match your search with similar melodic contours on the Web found in MIDI files, .wav files, MP3 files, etc.
In the meantime, here’s an idea. If you have a MIDI keyboard (mine was only $36), you can play your tune, record it, and save it to your hard drive. Then upload it to your personal web page (free, free, free!). Post a link to it on the SDMB and we’ll try to help you identify it. I’ve taken the initiative and gone through the routine.
I wasn’t sure if you knew this or not from your post, bibliophage, but that’s Für Elise by Beethoven. Here’s a link to the score: http://www.mfiles.co.uk/Downloads/Fur-Elise.htm
Don’t worry, I can’t play it any better, and I’ve been trying for years.
Yes, Balance I knew it was Furry Lisa (as I prefer to call it).
ishmintingas, I had another thought, that doesn’t require a MIDI keyboard. If you have a microphone (and a microphone jack on your computer), you can use the sound recorder program in Windows to record yourself humming or whistling the tune, and save it as a <.wav> file. In Win98, you can get to sound recorder by clicking Start > Programs > Accessories > Entertainment > Sound Recorder (in English, anyway). I don’t know where it would be in other operating systems.
For the record, vBulletin does allow links to .mid and .wav files, but for whatever reason, it doesn’t work with files on my msnhomepages account. I tried it in ATMB and, links to MIDI files on my Netscape account (and other MIDI files on the Internet) work just fine.
ishmintingas’s first request is a more interesting topic. Terrific techical hurdles to overcome, but interesting. I once interviewed with Microsoft at the time they were going to do the “Cairo” object FS (now abandoned, and, no, I never worked there). One of the things they were talking about was special comparison, searching and merge techniques for files based on the type of object contained in the file, supported as an intrinsic feature of the filesystem. I wouldn’t want to be the guy to attempt to write merging functionality for .mpeg’s …