Google Guitar

Drag across the strings to strum, or press Z X C V B N for the six open notes. Each string vibrates while it rings and settles as the sound fades.

What Is the Google Guitar Easter Egg?

Google guitar turns the logo into a working instrument. Six strings run across the fretboard, tuned low E to high E like a real guitar, and each one sounds a proper note through the browser rather than playing a sample. You can record a short phrase and play it back.

Because the tuning is standard, anything you can already play transfers straight across. If you cannot play, dragging slowly downward still sounds like a chord, which is why the google guitar game keeps people busy longer than it should.

How the Guitar Doodle Started

It went up on 9 June 2011 for the 96th birthday of the guitarist and inventor behind the solid-body electric guitar. The logo became strings you could strum with the cursor, with a record button that captured a short clip.

People spent so long playing that it was left up an extra day before moving to the archive, where it still works. It remains the most musical thing in the whole set of tricks, and the only one that makes noise on purpose.

How to Play Google Guitar

• Drag down across the strings for a downstroke, then up for the return.
• Press Z, X, C, V, B or N to pluck a single string from the keyboard.
• Use the chord button to hear four strings ring together.
• Press record, play a short phrase, stop, then play it back.
• Strum slowly. The gap between strings is what makes it sound like an instrument rather than a block chord.

FAQs

Why can I not hear anything?

Browsers block sound until you interact with the page, so click a string or a button first, and check the tab is not muted.

What tuning is it in?

Standard EADGBE, low to high, with no capo.

Why do so many spellings of this exist?

Guitar is a word people mistype constantly. Searches for google gitar, google gutar, google guiter and google gutair all lead to the same doodle.

Is there another doodle I can still play?

The maze in google pac-man, which was also kept online permanently. Both are listed with the other google easter eggs, along with the arcade rebuilds.