Edible Apple

Above is the most ingenious and clever logos to ever appear on the Google homepage. This past Thursday, Google’s logo transformed into a series of guitar strings in honor of the 96th birthday of Les Paul, the famed American guitar player and inventor of the solid body electric guitar. It’s no stretch at all to say that Paul was one of the major catalysts for the advent of Rock and Roll.

But what makes Google’s logo this week so incredible is that it’s actually playable. That’s right, folks, check out Google’s homepage while you still can and tinker away by placing the mouse cursor over the strings. And if you have instant search turned off, you can use the keyboard to play each string. Moreover, users can even record their “sessions” via the record button visible at the bottom and play them back and share them with friends via a Google link that appears once a user stops a recording session. Again, truly unbelievable. Note, though, that the doodle is set to expire on Friday night.

Impressively, some folks decided to figure out which strings correspond to which note and actually record real songs instead of lazily strumming away like most of us bums. If you mosey on over here, you can check out a recording of the Beatles’ Here Comes The Sun.

PC Mag gives us the scoop:

After toying around with the Doodle for a while, Chris figured out which keys corresponded to which notes. The Doodle works on all four rows of the keyboard starting at 1, Q, A, and Z. On the A row through the semicolon, you can play an octave plus two notes. With that knowledge, Chris set out to play something memorable. A Beatles song was a logical choice.

Starting on the A-row, the left plays fifths on A and G. The right hand comes in with ; K L ; K ; L K H ; L K J. For a moving bass line during the melody, the left hand plays F A F A G S G S. The right hand then plays H J K L ; K L ; K ; K L ; K L ; K L ; K ; L ; L K. Then there’s a switch to G H K L G K L G K L G K L G K L J A J. A chord comes in with A D K ; and then the left hand bass is A G (x4) F A (x3) S H (x2) A G (x2) F D S A G. A D K ; is the final chord.

Very cool, Google. Very cool.

And some other Doodle recordings for your listening enjoyment and amazement.

Brooding Teenager by Alexander Chen, one of the four programmers behind the doodle.

And to really make you feel like a slouch, here’s a multi-track recording of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean”.

Wow.