The present invention relates to method and system for distinguishing speech from music in a digital audio signal in real time. A method for distinguishing speech from music in a digital audio signal in real time for the sound segments that have been segmented from an input signal of the digital sound processing systems by means of a segmentation unit on the base of homogeneity of their properties, comprises the steps of: (a) framing an input signal into sequence of overlapped frames by a windowing function; (b) calculating frame spectrum for every frame by FFT transform; (c) calculating segment harmony measure on base of frame spectrum sequence; (d) calculating segment noise measure on base of the frame spectrum sequence; (e) calculating segment tail measure on base of the frame spectrum sequence; (f) calculating segment drag out measure on base of the frame spectrum sequence; (g) calculating segment rhythm measure on base of the frame spectrum sequence; and (h) making the distinguishing decision based on characteristics calculated.