When you’re searching for something on Google today, you’ll notice a fascinating instrument at the top of the page: It’s a recordable electric guitar built in the shape of the Google logo, paying homage to guitar great Les Paul, who would have been 96 years old today (Thursday).
Hover your mouse over the strings, and you can strum this little instrument. You can also play notes on your keyboard. Click the rectangular record button positioned where the bottom part of the second “g” in the word “Google” would be, and every note you play will be saved for posterity. Update: We’re hearing the recording function is only working in the U.S.
There’s more. It creates a URL that you can send to others, so they can listen to your masterpiece. Here’s where it gets even more interesting: Send the URL to someone, and when that person pastes that URL into the address bar, you can play a duet together. Try it — play along with me.
Or, you can play along with your own recording, overdubbing just like Les Paul did for the first time way back in the late ’40s. Someone could actually make some real music with this.
Click the doodle itself, and it takes you to sites featuring Les Paul. Try it here.
How appropriate! Les Paul, one of the first electric guitarists and builder of one of the first solid-body electric guitars, was an innovative recording artist who created new ways to overdub tracks in the recording studio. And here his memory is honored with another innovation, a webpage that shows a playable and animated electric guitar — that can record and overdub — on his birthday.
Les Paul, after whom the storied Gibson Les Paul guitar is named, died in 2009 after living to the ripe old age of 94. Kudos to Google for honoring his creative spirit by building the best Google doodle ever.
