Celebrities try hand at Les Paul Google Doodle

Not even celebrities were immune to the charms of Google's latest Doodle, an interactive online guitar paying homage to guitar hero Les Paul. These are aside from the thousands of videos posted on video-sharing site YouTube by "ordinary" users playing the Doodle. PC Magazine reported that MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow was one of the first to try her hand at playing the Doodle, first banging out a clumsy version of "Hey, Jude." But after trying to figure out how to play specific songs with a keyboard and mouse, Maddow experimented to see how musical regular typing sounded. She also went a step further, comparing the "melodiousness" of the first names of politicians in the news, such as "Barack" and leading Republicans, from Mitt to Timothy to Sarah. On the other hand, a real musician - guitarist Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave fame - hammered out a 30-second tune on the Doodle. "The Doodle has inspired Web users the world over to get creative. A search for 'Les Paul Google Doodle' on YouTube brings back thousands of results, and similar searches on Twitter produce even more. Here in the PCMag offices, our own Chris Phillips did a rendition of The Beatles' 'Here Comes the Sun' and provided instructions on how to play it," PC World said. The Les Paul Doodle is the latest hit interactive Google Doodle. Last year, Google created a playable version of Pac-Man as its homepage logo. Last February, the logo was rendered as a controllable submarine in celebration of Jules Verne's birthday. Story behind the Les Paul Doodle The Google team behind the Doodle was overwhelmed with the positive response. "We were just overwhelmed with the positive response. People just took it and ran with it," Ryan Germick, the Google Team Lead behind the project, told Rolling Stone. The guitar chords one hears while playing the Doodle began with Google's Creative Lab Designer Alexander Chen's own Les Paul guitar. "I basically just played 20 or 30 notes and then chose the ones that made sense for the Doodle," said Chen. He said he specifically chose G because that was the first set of chords that he learned on the guitar and that was the one most people learn first. "I thought that would be a fun way to have a sort of beginner-style guitar entry point," he said. Chen had released a series of albums with the projects Boy in Static and Consulate General. He described his albums as a "sort of indie rock mixed with electronic layers," and as "indie pop with some sort of experimental shoegaze-y noise layers." "I've opened for bands at some pretty big venues, like Irving Plaza. But I've sort of switched gears and now do more of this music and art intersection instead of the normal recording of albums," he said. Rolling Stone said that Google's entire design team was thrilled by the creative ways in which people used the Doodle. Chen recalled seeing a YouTube video where people brought three computers and were playing as a trio. "We didn't totally anticipate that. It's just kind of neat to see people giving each other music lessons all over the Internet," he said. Germick hinted the Les Paul Doodle may be immortalized like the Pacman Doodle from last year, which Google kept alive at google.com/pacman. "Our engineers are working on a way to keep the guitar Doodle alive. I think it will continue to see life," he said. More works from 'armchair guitarists' The volume of work from "armchair guitarists" using the Doodle continued to mount as of Saturday morning (Philippine time), with many Filipino Netizens also joining in the fun. GMA News Online reader even sent in a version of Lupang Hinirang and Joy to the World. Meanwhile, the Christian Science Monitor posted "great performances" recorded or recommended by its readers. Christian Science Monitor particularly cited one work - Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" - as "truly (capturing) Les Paul's memory." The Monitor also cited the following works:

1. "Brooding teenager" from Alexander Chen, one of the four programmers behind the Les Paul Google Doodle. Also check out his "Bossanova vacation music".
2. The Beatles' "Here Comes the Sun", recommended by reader Nancy Cusack and attributed to Derek Emerson, a designer in California.
3. "Ode to Joy" sent along from reader fatbanana8.
4. "La Marseillaise", a.k.a. the French national anthem, posted by Virgil Mihailescu from Romania. He also included the Romanian national anthem.
5. Monitor reader RB shared the notation to play Bob Marley's "Redemption Song" : 12314653 12353421 12314653 12354321.
6. Happy Birthday, from YouTube user pol901pol.
7. The intro to "One" by Metallica, performed by YouTube user 6804alefito.
8. A little Bach, shared by reader Mike Luo.
9. "Ripple" by the Greatful Dead and posted by Monitor reader David.