Guitar pioneer Les Paul honoured with his own playable Google Doodle

9th June 2011 Google Homepage

If you hear the distant strains of a multiple guitars being strummed in the office today, Google is to blame.

The late, great, guitar pioneer Les Paul has been celebrated on what would have been his 96th birthday today with his own playable guitar 'Google Doodle'.

Anyone logging onto the Google homepage today will see the authentic-sounding doodle above the search box and can strum away using either their mouse or keyboard.

And would-be Jimi Hendrixes and Pete Townshends can even save their efforts using the handy record function, however this currently only available in the US.

Get strumming: The interactive Les Paul Google Doodle released today

A Google spokesman blogged: 'The electric guitar brings back memories for me of exchanging riffs with friends and wearing out cassette tapes as I meticulously learned songs.

'Today, we’re attempting to recreate that experience with a doodle celebrating the birthday of musician and inventor Les Paul.

'For the next 24 hours on the Google homepage, you’ll find an interactive, playable logo inspired by the guitar developed by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee that made the sound of rock and roll possible.'

He added that users in the U.S. could click the black 'compose' button to record their own 30-second tracks. Clicking the button again would display a link to share the songs.

The complex interactive doodle was creating using a combination of JavaScript, HTML5 Canvas to draw the guitar strings, CSS, Flash for the sound as well as tools like the Google Font API, goo.gl and App Engine.

Les Paul was one of the great musical pioneers of the 20th century. Not only did he build one of the the first playable electric guitars but he also invented multi-track recording - the process of layering multiple takes on top of each other - something that completely revolutionised the recording industry.

Pioneer: Les Paul revolutionised the recording process

However he is best remembered for his namesake guitar model first sold in 1952 by the Gibson guitar company and the chosen instrument of guitar heroes such as Jimmy Page, Bob Marley, Noel Gallagher and Slash.

Bosses at Gibson had originally sneered when, in 1940, Paul presented them with his crude prototype electric guitar, known as the Log, which he had built out of a railway sleeper.

But when Leo Fender's company released their first electric guitar - the Esquire - in 1950, Gibson called Paul back in and begged for his help developing a rival product.

The result was the Gibson Les Paul, still one of the most popular electric guitars available and loved by guitarists worldwide for its distinctive powerful tone.

Paul, himself an accomplished guitarist, continued to perform Jazz and Country music using his own Les Paul Recording model guitar at New York's Iridium Jazz Club right up to the time of his death at the age of 94.

The Les Paul Doodle is one of a hundreds that Google has featured on its home page in recent years. Others luminaries to be honorewd with doodles include Issac Newton, Vivaldi, Thomad Edison, Harry Houdini and Snoopy from the Peanuts cartoon.

Earlier this year they provoked much speculation after celebrating the anniversary of the ice cream sundae with a doodle.

The picture was supposedly to mark the 119th anniversary of the dessert's creation, but online blogs were buzzing with claims Google will shortly release an 'Ice Cream' operating system.

Guitarists (clockwise from top left) Slash, Bob Marley, Noel Gallagher and Jimmy Page all chose the Les Paul

They paid tribute to what would have been the 200th birthday of Bunsen burner inventor Robert Bunsen with an animated doodle showing a flame changing colour from blue to purple as various chemicals bubble brightly in pots and test tubes.

In February, the search engine marked Valentine's Day with a tribute to artist Robert Indiana's famous 'LOVE' sculpture.

Its homepage exhibited a remodelled version of the landmark piece of Pop Art.

The doodle kept the simple red, blue and green colour of the original art and replaced the first 'O' in Google with a love heart, while slanting it's second 'O' in homage.

That same month the search engine marked the 183rd anniversary of the birth of French science-fiction writer Jules Verne.

That doodle turned the Google logo into a cluster of submarine portholes of a distinctly vintage variety.

Behind these windows lay an ocean peacefully splashing away - but users were able to control the depth and direction of the submarine using the lever to the right of the logo.

Perhaps their most famous interactive Google Doodle was the Pac Man game last May. The playable game was posted online to mark the 30th birthday of the classic arcade title.

loved this one and the Martha Graham one they did recently!

My kid drove me nuts for about 20 minutes with this.

I saw that Google thing, I had no idea you could make it play stuff.

*runs to see if it's still up*

I think mine is funky-fresh for someone who can't play guitar worth a damn.

http://goo.gl/doodle/4UdQr

I appreciate the thought, but it's about as exciting as grass growing.

RodeoSchro said:

I appreciate the thought, but it's about as exciting as grass growing.

...Then I must be really easily amused.

JustErin said:

My kid drove me nuts for about 20 minutes with this.

my friends 5 yr old sang twinkle twinkle little star as she played with this, so cute!