That doodle is sooooo cool. I spent all day yesterday playing with it, but d*** a** me I did not know you could type in letters. I thought you had to mouse it. So, late into last night after the show I played with it some more and I am not at my peak today... But it is Friday and I don't really care.

Since you can play one recording while typing in a second name, you should see how well potential VPs sound like with their Presidential runningmate.

off topic, but fascinated by the possibility rachel fly fishes... thanks to the calendar hanging on the wall behind her in this video clip.

http://goo.gl/doodle/CCohy (please dont eat the garnish)

GOOGLE !

Please save that in a place where we can always access the Les Paul Doodle !!

My son is a musician and he loves his Les Paul. I really like Google's creativity.

*Please do not use the fact that I mention my son here as an excuse to engage in stupid conversation about him with me.

Thank God I'm a nerd

http://goo.gl/doodle/4rC45

http://goo.gl/doodle/b6AzH

Here is some Star Wars action. I don't know what key they have tuned the guitar to, but I know that the Q, A, Z, I, and K keys are the first note of the scale. (They are the note "do" as in do re mi.) So if you end on those keys it will sound like the song has reached a resolution. I've been trying to come up with political names that end in those letters but haven't had any luck. But if you type in "Fiji" you get a nice jingle. Moral of the story: we should plan our next vacation to Fiji because it is the most melodious.

Fun stuff for non-musicians, but as this system was rather easy to figure out and is severely limited for those who understand the scale. It's rather disappointing, too. I have access only to a single major scale and two notes above the octave, which means access to the relative minor has been cut off. There's still quite a few tunes one can pluck out, but a simple shift key function to raise or lower the notes by a half step would have provided much more possibility for expression and experimentation. My advice for anyone who found this even remotely entertaining and who were able to pluck out simplest tune is this: congratulations, you have a musician's ear! Now go reward yourself and conquer a real musical instrument. Nothing else frees your soul so much as the ability to make music on a real piece of wood and/or metal.

By the way, the reason "Barack" sounds good and the other names don't is because of the way this scale works. "A" and "K" both represent the tonic, or root, of the scale, one octave away from each other. The "B" is the fifth, or dominant, and the "R" corresponds to the fourth, the sub-dominant. Your most perfect cadences, then are available to his name, the five-to-one and the four-to-one. Even better, the "C" corresponds to the third of the scale, which is the middle note of the tonic triad, so he get's a nice outline of the tonic chord to resolve the sequence. You can easily see this by translating the letters to the numbers up top: you can play "Barack" at 514138 as well, giving you a simple lesson in how certain tones of the scale correspond to numbers. Try it!

I'm slightly tone deaf and musically inept--smal animals have been know to call the SPCA when I sing. But Obama-Biden sounds much better than Romney-Palin. The kicker, though, Nixon-AGnew kinda rocks. (

Willard (Romney's legal first name) also sounds depressing in a 90's grunge way.

Debunction Junction what's your function

http://goo.gl/doodle/AhHB8

My real name, no I'm not gonna give it out.

http://goo.gl/doodle/AFuv6

Thanks Rachel! it was nice to pretend to play guitar without playing Guitar Hero. I never was any good at that game. At lease this way, only my daughter can hear how bad I play the Guitar.

Abraham
http://goo.gl/doodle/2bGPQ

It reminds me of Rachel's rendition of "Barack" last night.

Kennedy
http://goo.gl/doodle/ttRZP

Surprisingly, it's only three strings. Not surprisingly, it sounds okay. ;-)

So, I've spent the last 15 minutes or so, going through some of the "better" Presidents (as ranked by the aggregate score: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_rankings_of_Presidents_of_the_United_States#Scholar_survey_results)

and I have to say, the best sounding "President," by first name or last name, to my ear, has to be FDR [Franklin]. Have a listen: http://goo.gl/doodle/Lnezc

new show theme song? ["therachelmaddowshow"]

Ms Maddow's personal theme ["rachelmaddow"]

my name doesn't come out so melodious :\

what could've been really sweet was to make it possible for to play out for what you were Googleing, with an opt-out/mute of course. i do hope they keep it available somewhere. that Pac-Man one, too. #wockawocka :)

Not a name or anything political but still rad: Indiana Jones theme song

Gah, the link didn't work!

HERE is the Indian Jones theme:

How to play it on the doodle: ERTI WER TYUP YU IOP

After I watched Rachel’s show last nigh, I tried the same experiment using the last names of the candidates with somewhat disturbing results. Not only did Obama come out clunky and unmelodic, but even worse, of all the possible Republican contenders, I found Palin to be the most melodic. However, when I tried the last names of all former Presidents, Harding sounded best, so I’m not setting too much stock in it. Taft and Carter also weren’t too bad.

The permanent home of the Les Paul guitar doodle is here:

http://www.google.com/logos/2011/lespaul.html

:D

Letters Q-P play each on the strings, if I recall correctly.

Speaking of sound from a spiritual perspective--just reread this interesting bit from Illuminating the Afterlife: Your Soul's Journey Through the Worlds Beyond by Cyndi Dale and thought of this:

Each of our spirits carries a certain set of spiritual truths.

If seen from an earthly point of view, these truths would be perceived as tonal harmonics, or a series of colors and shapes. [Sacred geometry?] They constitute the basis of each individual's spiritual purpose. Your spiritual mission is to manifest your own unique version of these truths into concrete reality.

Thus, we are each here to sing our song, and together, to create a larger composition of beauty and delight.

**In the author's case, before coming to earth (from a pre-mortal perspective), she was assigned "tasks" represented by "three arcs of different colors" where she was guided through each archway.

The energy of the first arc was multicolored and made me tingle. I heard the equivalent of the word "happiness." The second arc shimmered with sparkling shades of pink. I heard the word "healing." The third arc was deep and dark. Perhaps red? Maybe blue? Or, purple, the blend of both? A pleasant melody wafted from it, and I heard the phrase "sharing of love."

So Obama, in all his relative melodiousness, needs to manifest "kick ass." And soon, please.