Melodic Pitch Contours

[Hypersmurf]

While on my way to get something for lunch, I walked past a store playing a piece of music.

I recognised it; I knew it was from a movie soundtrack; I could almost bring images from the film to mind, but not quite.

It drove me nuts for a couple of hours trying to place it.

Does anyone know if there are any Melodic Pitch Contours databases online anywhere? The theory is that a song is represented by a sequence of characters, based on the notes from the main melody. If a note is of higher pitch than the preceding note, it's a U (for 'up'); if lower, a D (for 'down'); if the same, an R (for 'repeat').

As an example, 'Mary Had A Little Lamb' might be:

*DDUURRDRRUURDDDUURRRDRUDD

* Ma-
D -ry
D had
U a
U lit-
R -tle
R lamb,
D lit-
R -tle
R lamb,
U lit-
U -tle
R lamb;
D Ma-
D -ry
D had
U a
U lit-
R -tle
R lamb,
R its
D fleece
R was
U white
D as
D snow.

I remember reading that something like twelve or fifteen characters (exact figure, I can't remember) is usually enough to identify - or at least narrow down the options incredibly - a song.

My mystery piece, I could represent as:

*UUUDUDDDRUDRUUUDUDDDUDUUDDDUUDDDD...

... but without a database, that was of little help.

I eventually identified it as being from the Braveheart soundtrack, but I would have preferred some help!

(I know there are cellphone-based services now where a song is identified from an audio sample, but that's not what I'm looking for.)

Anyone aware of anything like this out there?

-Hyp.