The likes of Eric Clapton and Keith Richards may find it a little limiting in terms of what it can do, but for those who’ve never picked up a guitar before in their life, though always fancied a strum, Google has come up with just the thing – a (kind of) guitar, on its search page.
The latest Google doodle is a tribute to the pioneer of the solid-body electric guitar, Les Paul (d. 2009), who would have been 96 today. Paul designed the famous Gibson Les Paul guitar in 1952, a model used by the likes of Paul McCartney, Clapton and U2’s the Edge. He also helped to develop various recording studio techniques such as multitrack recording.
Google’s latest doodle does, of course, spell “Google” (if you look hard enough), and comprises ten strings. Move the cursor over the strings and in an instant you’ll (hopefully) be making sweet music. Press the red button and you can play using your keyboard, which offers more versatility in knocking together a tune. Some versions of the Google search page have a record button in place of the keyboard option, so you can play your masterpiece back to your co-workers to prove you weren’t working when you should’ve been.
Google enjoys putting up various interactive doodles from time to time. A recent hit was Pac-Man (celebrating the game’s 30th anniversary), a doodle which took many an office worker through lunch and well beyond. Google’s guitar could well have the same effect. All over the world today, in memory of the legendary Les Paul, workplaces will more than likely be rocking away to the sounds of the Google guitar.
