Apple Music, Spotify, and other music streaming services now offer a karaoke mode that lets users sing along with the lyrics in real-time. In a statement, Oliver Schusser, who is the vice president of Apple Music and Beats, mentioned that the lyrics feature offered by Apple Music is consistently among the most favored features on their platform.
Here is how to use karaoke mode on Apple Music, Spotify, and more.
Apple Music
To use karaoke mode on Apple Music, you need to have an Apple device with iOS 13 or later, or a Mac with macOS Catalina or later. To enable karaoke mode:
- Launch Apple Music and select a song to play
- Look for the lyrics icon at the bottom of the screen (it looks like a speech bubble)
- Time-synced lyrics will appear if available (some songs only have static lyrics)
- For songs that support Apple Music Sing, a microphone icon with stars will be displayed
- Click on the microphone icon to view lyrics with each word highlighted as the song plays
- Adjust the volume of the original vocals by moving the microphone slider up or down
Spotify
To use karaoke mode on Spotify, you need to have a Spotify Premium account and a compatible device. To enable karaoke mode:
- Open Spotify and select a song to play
- Access the “Now Playing” view
- To view real-time lyrics on a mobile device, swipe up from the bottom of the screen
- On the desktop app, click on the microphone icon to view the lyrics
- On the TV app, select the lyrics button on the right-hand side
- Lyrics from Musixmatch will appear, with each line highlighted as it plays
- If the song is compatible with karaoke mode, a “sing” button with a microphone icon will appear
- Click on the “sing” button to activate the karaoke mode
- The mode uses your device’s microphone to analyze your singing and gives you a score out of 100
There are other music streaming platforms that offer a karaoke mode or similar features. YouTube Music, for example, has a feature called Sing Along that displays the lyrics of some songs and allows users to adjust the pitch and speed of playback. Amazon Music has a feature called X-Ray Lyrics that displays the lyrics of some songs and highlights them while singing and Deezer has a feature called Lyrics that shows the user the lyrics of some songs and lets them sing along.