A customer for music distributed over the internet may select a composition from a menu of written identifiers (such as the song title and singer or group) and then confirm that the composition is indeed the one desired by listening to a corrupted version of the composition. If the customer has forgotten the song title or the singer or other words that provide the identifier, he or she may hum or otherwise vocalize a few bars of the desired composition, or pick the desired composition out on a simulated keyboard. A music-recognition system then locates candidates for the selected composition and displays identifiers for these candidates to the customer.