Google Guitar Doodle Song Gallery

itwbennett writes "Now in its second day of productivity destruction, Google's Guitar Doodle is still making music, beautiful music. Here's a roundup of some of YouTube's best, from beginner favorite Seven Nation Army to an ambitious version of Paint it Black, and, yes, Stairway to Heaven."

Re:Really Google?

[Joe Jay Bee]

Yes they should be horrified that the impractical toy guitar that was designed to fit inside their logo is impossible to play complex songs on.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

If you click on the little keyboard you can then play notes by pressing different keys, just like the old SoundTracker.

Re:

[Jello B.]

Not true. There's an F sharp.

Re:

[lithis]

There is, in fact, one sharp, because the doodle is in the key of G.

That's G as in Bach's Minuet in G [goo.gl]. I can't play the rest of the song [goo.gl] properly due to the lack of accidentals and notes below G.

Re:

[istartedi]

I figured that somebody who really knows music would be able to come up with a tune that works within the restrictions of the doodle. That Minuet actually sounds good.

Re:

[phantomfive]

Here was my original composition inspired by the event: http://goo.gl/doodle/9SF6g [goo.gl] It was surprisingly hard to get the notes even when playing your computer keyboard quickly.

Here's the best Beatles song I've heard so far played on it (but this one wasn't me): http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html#hl=en&tune=IBBQIQkg [google.com]

inb4...

[itchythebear]

freebird!!!!

Freeeeee Birrrrrrd!!!

[chemicaldave]

Play Freebird!

Wow, 3.5 MB for a page

[A Friendly Troll]

Size of main page:
111.421 bytes

Number of inline elements:
172 (3.563.734 bytes)

That's with ad blocking turned on.

Without it, the page is over 4 megabytes.

Jesus...

Re:

[Idbar]

Additionally, the page allows you record the chords and use a shortened version to play the music. Yet, everyone has decided to record massive youtube videos instead.

Re:

[audunn]

Perhaps it is because google recording was just 30 seconds. For most those 30 seconds is more than enough but for a rare few nowhere near. But yeah maybe most people just didn't get the recording feature.

The doodle doesn't show up for me anymore..

[iONiUM]

I don't know about others, but for me Google's homepage does not have the guitar anymore. It also doesn't appear in Google's history for doodles.

But, through some long-winded way that included Facebook, I found this link [pomocode.com] that has it. Enjoy.

Re:

[the_other_chewey]

Or you could just use http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&tune [google.com]

It's not really obvious though...

Re:

[geezer nerd]

For years now, I have not been able to see ANY of the Google doodles. All I ever see is the traditional multicolored logo, no matter what cute thing is being touted on the web. To be fair, what I see also has a small "Beta" subscript on it. Does that mean somewhere along the line I have eaten a cookie that makes me doodle-free? Since this situation began about the time I moved from the US, I thought it might be that the doodles are not shared on Google's international sites, but that seems absurd. No matte

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's the encryption, but it's good for you :)

You can always go here: google.com/logos

Re:

[maxwell demon]

Do you possibly have a browser setting or extension enabled which forces the browser always to use the secure (encrypted) version of a web site if available?
If so, you probably have to disable that to see the traditional Google page.

No mention of Les Paul?

[jd2112]

The Google Doodle was in honor of Les Paul, who would have been 96 yesterday. For the handfull of slashdotters who don't know Les Paul was one of the inventors of the solid body electric guitar, multitrack recording, and many other inventions still used in the recording industry. And if that weren't enough he was an excellent musician as well.

Re:No mention of Les Paul?

[gnapster]

Here is a comic strip [questionablecontent.net] commemorating his passing (nearly two years ago).

Re:No mention of Les Paul?

[gknoy]

For those seeing the [questionablecontent.net] annotation and wondering if the strip is worksafe, it is. That particular one is. (I'm pretty sure most of the ones in the archive would be also, but you might be careful all the same. This one's safe, though.)

If you'd rather not read the comic, one could always read Les Paul's wikipedia article ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Paul [wikipedia.org] ), but QC mentions some of his really notable accomplishments. A brief (and likely too-shallow) overview would be to say that he was a pioneer of the solid body guitar (the Gibson Les Paul closely followed the Fender Telecaster), and that he invented multitrack recording (along with also pioneering several other techniques). He laid the technological basis for nearly all of our recent music.

Even though I'm not a music nerd, I think the guy was pretty amazing.

Re:No mention of Les Paul?

[Naurgrim]

And if that weren't enough he was an excellent musician as well.

I consider myself fortunate to have seen him play live, must have been about 1986. He was one of the finest guitarists ever, IMHO.

Before seeing him live, I had heard many of his recordings. Knowing that he like to use tape effects, etc. I thought that some of his fast riffs were done with double speed tape, as they sounded super-humanly fast. I was amazed to find that he actually could play that fast, live, without error.

The only other guitarist I have seen play live at that level is Robert Fripp, but that's a story for another day - King Crimson, Discipline tour, 1982.

Ought to be great fun...

[Black Parrot]

...until the RIAA lawyers show up with the take-down notices.

Heaven forbid if someone should do "Happy Birthday"[*] - a SWAT team might show up instead.

[*] Can I use those words on Slashdot without getting fined?

Re:

[just_another_sean]

Oh no, this guy better really be worried (artist featured in video)!

We're Going to be Friends [youtube.com]

It's really good BTW

My Submission

[Jonathan Perkin]

http://goo.gl/doodle/peUg5 [goo.gl]

Re:

[gnapster]

How did you do that? I have been playing with it, but I only have a trackpad, which feels incredibly restricted. I don't expect I could do much better with a mouse. Do you have a touch screen?

Re:

[Smurf]

If you have problems getting the keyboard to strum, you may need to turn off Google Instant [google.com] in your search settings [google.com]. Then, click somewhere out of the text box, and go nuts with the keyboard.

Re:

[gnapster]

Oh! It never occurred to me to use the keyboard. Thanks!

Re:

[gknoy]

Well played! (literally and figuratively)

Re:

[froggymana]

And mine: http://goo.gl/doodle/vm76M [goo.gl]

NO Stairway to Heaven.

[a_nonamiss]

NO Stairway. Denied.

Tetris

[jqweezy]

http://www.google.com/webhp?tune=UAEIQiVBNBEQIgISilEhCECoEISiRFJCSQkgIA** [google.com]

Now I feel like sheepish

[hellfire]

All I could manage was row row row your boat.

http://goo.gl/doodle/Sesa [goo.gl]

Re:

[serbanp]

use the computer keyboard and a world of possibilities (sans accents, that's it) will open up...

Re:

[hellfire]

Dude. I did use the keyboard! :)

Re:

[serbanp]

oooh! [what one says in this situation? yes!] It's very good, yeah, the talent is there but you just need a little practice, that's all! :P

Strings vibrate but no sound

[Rob the Bold]

I can see the strings vibrate when I pick them, and when playing back, but no sound with Chrome on Ubuntu. I kind of thought there should be, but figured I just didn't get it. Now I see I did get it, but didn't get it.

Suppose I could debug, but that would take time from Slashdot posting . . .

Re:

[Jello B.]

Sound comes from Flash.

Re:

[Rob the Bold]

Flash works -- well as well as flash works -- on other pages. And I wasn't no-scripting. The answer it seems was to use Firefox instead of Chrome. OK, Google.

I don't know if it's this laggy for everyone, but I will not inflict my extra slow and even crappier interpolation of "Stairway" on you.

Forward to the past III

[Chemtox]

Until someone comes out with an ASIO driver for Firefox, I'm sticking to Guitar Queero.

Please don't sue me, Paramount

[bitrex]

http://goo.gl/doodle/3hcD3 [goo.gl]

Re:

[socz]

Now that's Top Fun!

Re:

[Overzeetop]

Yeah, but can you do Axel F?

What about original songs?

[Briareos]

Tim Exile [youtu.be] at least does his thing without infring^wreferencing prior art... :)

This may be good

[Lord Juan]

You know, if the RIAA and other collecting agencies start acting like assholes as always, and start taking down user created contend up and down, maybe more people would get a glance at how terrible the current copyright regime is. Since common people never create anything, and just consume, they never get to see how bad things really are.

If that's the best...

[DerekLyons]

If that's "some of the best", I'd hate to hear any of the worst. Most of the songs were virtually unrecognizable..

How to get the keyboard and not autocomplete

[pkinetics]

Some people keep having the autocomplete kick in when they start using the keyboard. Here is how to get the keyboard to work.

There is a spot just under the strings, to the left of the record button. If you mouse over it, your mouse pointer will change to a cursor. It is a relatively decent size area, so you have a decent area to click. Click here.

This is essentially the spot where the widget is for the playback dealie bopper.

This works in Chrome, IE8, and Firefox.

Re:

[dogmatixpsych]

Or, you can just click the record button (and then click to stop it). That's usually what I do.

The doodle now has a permanent home

[audunn]

Google have given it a permanent home here http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html [google.com]

U2

[dogmatixpsych]

Here's one of my Doodle songs: http://youtu.be/5tPoLqSQNmw [youtu.be]

Maybe ...

[PPH]

... when Keith Moon's [wikipedia.org] birthday rolls around, Google can do a drum set. I've been dying to drive my cow-orkers completely nuts with a good drum solo.

Weird

[Legion303]

I don't understand the layout (maybe for ease in strumming chords with your mouse?), and there are only 10 notes you can play, limited to GMaj. Maybe Google didn't want people recording a bunch of atonal crap or something, but that doesn't stop me from doing this: http://tinyurl.com/3z5wvjz [tinyurl.com]

I'm feeling lucky

[Dredakyst]

Here's one of our doodle songs, the wife and i worked on: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwhfgaluniY [youtube.com]

Les Paul

[BrynM]

Since there's no mention of Les Paul in a lot of the news relating to the doodle, here he is. Thank you Les. I have proudly owned several guitars with your name and they have given me countless moments of joy, contemplation and reverence. I hope the other side of the rainbow is treating you well. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NdSU03jnUw [youtube.com]

once I figured out you could use a the keyboard...

[night_flyer]

Google song [google.com] hopefully that will get around the lameness filter

Some mistakes

[okmijnuhb]

Really some rather tone deaf incorrect choice of notes in "Paint it Black" and others. How can you call it "not bad"?

Requires Adobe Flash

[kriston]

Even though many of these doodles are there to surreptitiously showcase standards-based alternatives to Adobe Flash, this doodle actually requires Adobe Flash to play the audio.

Re:

[sjames]

That's because when it comes to multimedia, HTML5 really isn't there yet. It has no kind of support for live streaming, cannot deal with generated sound, and is fragmented by patent trolls. The latter is not a solvable problem until patents expire or the courts and legislatures of the world start being for the people, but the others are a simple lack of actually thinking things through.