Sound Hound

With Sound Hound, users can sing or play a song into their iPads’ microphone, and Sound Hound will identify the song within seconds. Once identified, Sound Hound will provide users with the song’s lyrics; a preview of the song; options to listen to the song on iTunes, Rdio, and Spotify; and view the song’s video. Additionally, users can share the song on Facebook and Twitter, add the song to their Spotify playlist, and “favorite” the song. As users identify and “favorite” songs, Sound Hound keeps a log of their actions, which can be referenced at any time when using the app. In addition, Sound Hound provides users with a Search option, in which they can enter an artist, song title, album, or lyric into the search box, and Sound Hound will report information based on the search term. Also, a Chart option that tracks which songs are most popular each week and a World Map option that shows music by location are included.

Instructional Ideas

1. When introducing a musician to be studied, teachers can have students search for the musician using this app and explore his or her music. Specifically, teachers can have students read the musician’s lyrics and make predictions about which genre his or her music best aligns to, what his or her songs are likely to be about, and if they are going to like the music.
2. If teachers assign students a research report about a musician, students would be able to access a significant amount of information about that musician using this app.
3. Students can search for a musician on both Sound Hound and Band Bio. Students can then compose a summary paragraph based on what they learned about the musician from these two apps. Because the two apps report different types of information, students can also include commentary about which app provides the highest quality information.
4. When teaching specific time periods, teachers can have students research musicians who were popular during that period. Next, students can use this app to investigate the musicians’ songs and lyrics. Students can then cross-reference their Sound Hound findings with Band Bio by searching on that app as well. Finally, students can create brief presentations about the time period and/or musicians using Haiku Deck or Quick Office, which can be shared.

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