I don't listen to music as much as I'd like. I don't like background music and prefer to really focus on what I'm listening to. And since I'm often busy (or make myself busy) it's hard for me to find time to sit quietly and listen. That's a pity since I have a substantial jazz collection with many items that I'd love to hear more often. What's more, when driving I prefer to have the radio open, giving myself the opportunity to hear something I'm not familiar with, including popular music. Most radio stations, however, don't tell me what I've been listening to, and I'd like to know. Sometimes it's a new song that I'd like to identify, and sometimes it's something I've heard numerous times in the past but can't place. Which is where Shazam comes in.

On the whole, before Shazam I'd try to remember a line from a song I heard so that I could run a search for it when I got to work (or home). If I was lucky I might get to a red light and jot down the words since more often than not by the time I got to work I'd either forgotten the words I wanted to check, or forgotten I'd wanted to check something. And perhaps this explains why, though it's definitely one of my favorite apps, I don't use it as much as I'd like. I can't really open it and tap to identify a song while I'm driving. As with jotting down some words, I have to wait for a red light. Still, it's a wonderful, almost magical, tool.