Abstract: Modern portable electronic devices are commercially available with ever increasing memory capable of storing tens of thousands of song, hundreds of thousands of images, and hundreds of hours of video. The traditional means of selecting and accessing an item within such devices is with a limited number of keys and requires the user to progressively work through a series of lists, some of which may be very large. Provided is a method for speech recognition that allows users to efficiently select their preferred tune, video, or other information using speech rather than cumbersome scrolling through large lists of available material. Users are able to enter search and command terms verbally to these electronic devices and users who cannot remember the correct name of the audio-visual content are supported by searches based on lyrics, tempo, riff, chorus, and so forth. Further, pseudonyms may be associated with audio-visual content by the user to ease recollection.