Name That Tune

I wasn’t sure what to write about today. I didn’t want anything long, but I wanted an actual post as well. So, I decided to write up a little explanation of a game my family and I have been playing remotely!

For the past few weeks, at least once per week, my family and I have been playing Name That Tune via Zoom. The general setup and rules are simple:

• I create a playlist with ~100 songs my family is likely to know ahead of time.
• One by one I play through the songs (using the Random function to randomize the order).
• Those playing have until the end of the chorus (ie, song intro + verse 1 + chorus on most songs) to tell me who the artist is (1 point), and what the song is (1 point). First person to shout out the answer gets the point.
• There is a potential bonus point for anyone who also knows the album.
• If no one guesses the correct artist/title, I get the points. I don’t get a point for the album.
• Highest score wins. The goal is for me to be the lowest score, which means I chose songs well for my target audience.

It normally takes us 2 hours to play, but from what I’ve been told, everyone enjoys it (so far at least). My family is also getting competitive, and starting to intentionally try to listen to music they think I might incorporate into the game to get a leg up on the rest of the family.

Also, to keep track of what songs I’ve already used, and as a way for my family to look up the information at a later date, I’ve created a git repository with all of the playlists in CSV format. Obviously, what works for my family may not work well for others, but it gives you an idea of the songs we’ve used.

And a few notes on the technical side:

• Every user needs to use headphones. Otherwise it’s VERY hard to play, in our experience.
• I use loopback software on my computer to pipe the music to Zoom, while still monitoring it on my end. I can go into more detail on this at a later date.
• While I like local media, for this I am using Spotify, as I simply do not have access to the sheer amount of music needed to keep this interesting. At this point we’ve covered over 800 songs since we began playing.

And that’s the game! If anyone tries this out for themselves, let me know what you think of it, and how it goes!

I’m publishing this as part of 100 Days To Offload (Day 23/100). You can join in yourself by visiting https://100DaysToOffload.com.