Also with music in its heart is NEC Corp, which claims it has developed the world’s first melody retrieval system – it uses a personal computer to match a tune hummed or played into a microphone with one stored in its database, which doesn’t sound quite as useful as a system that takes a hummed melody, orchestrates it and plays it back as well as printing it out in musical notation, solving the problem of all those songwriting hopefuls that send their lyrics to publishers noting that they do have a tune but it’s in my head (Dear Sir, if you could just send us your head as Spike Milligan put it); nevertheless the NEC system is claimed to be the first method for retrieving a musical tune with near-human sensitivity and it required its scientists to invent an Ambiguous Recognition Method, which identifies even partially recalled tunes sung in the wrong key or to the wrong beat; NEC sees a wide range of possible applications for this technology in areas such as educational home electronics and expects to have products based on Ambiguous Recognition Method within two years.
