YouTuber and musician SamuraiGuitarist, real name Steve Onotera, has pulled together a bunch of Google doodles to create his own soothing rendition of the 1939 classic Over the Rainbow.
Canada-based Steve, who describes himself as “bred on rock, raised on the blues, trained in jazz,” used 11 doodles for his masterpiece. While some of them offered instrument-like functionality that allowed Steve to build the tune, a few of the doodles are less music-focused but included audio that added more layers to the tune. We think you’ll love the result.
Google’s doodle
Over the years, Google has showcased thousands of doodles on its homepage, celebrating all manner of anniversaries, holidays, and other notable events around the world. It all started way back in 1998 when Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin modified the company logo to show they were at the Burning Man festival in Nevada.
Two years later, with the idea still fresh in their minds, the pair asked then-intern Dennis Hwang to cook up a doodle for Bastille Day.
Hwang’s creation was such a hit with Google users that the company decided to make the doodle a central feature of the Web giant’s homepage. Sixteen years on, they continue to delight, surprise, and entertain millions of people around the world.
Today’s doodles are a team effort involving a group of illustrators and engineers at Google HQ, and can range from a simple illustration to more sophisticated interactive offerings like the instruments used in Steve’s video.
If you fancy knocking together your own doodle-based version of a favorite track using the same instruments as Steve, you can get started with this one, this one, and this one.
