Inspired by this thread.
Google has a fun little musical logo that they made for Les Paul’s birthday.
Can you play the first part of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on it after trying for a few minutes? Note that you can use the keyboard to hit the notes.
The correct answer, according to my ears, is this:
AATTHHT FFDDSSA
Not a hope. I’ve tried several instruments over the years and I just have zero natural talent.
To put it in perspective - I can’t even play Rockband beyond the beginner level.
I have no musical training and have never tried. I assume I can’t do it
The link is right there. Why not try, unless you’re so bored by the very concept that you can’t be bothered (in which case you should have voted differently)?
No training, and no luck. Even your spoiler didn’t help. I have no idea which letters go with which strings.
I have no musical training, but that doesn’t keep me from being a musician.
Translation: self taught. – or is that considered ‘some musical training’ in the poll?
That’s not important–I didn’t pay any attention to which strings correspond to which letters when I was playing around. If you just type the letters in the spoiler, can you get the rhythm close enough that you can recognize the tune?
Sorry, I didn’t know that I could hit a letter on the QWERTY keyboard to get a sound. (I was mouse-plucking. :smack: )
Yeah, with your knowledge, I was able to play the tune.
I couldn’t for the life of me do it trying to play on the strings with my mouse. Those strings make no sense to me.
Once I figured out what you meant by playing using the keyboard, it was easy.
Of course, I know how to play TTLS on piano, so there’s that.
I can pick out most any melody on most any instrument, though, if you give me a few minutes.
Well, if you’re purely self-taught, it presumably means that at one point you managed to map notes you hear with ones you play without anyone telling you if it was right or wrong. So for the purposes of the poll, I’d say “no musical training”.
I have some musical training, and could do it easily, although not on the Google doohickey, since I can’t hear it (maybe because I’m at work?).
But I will say that I found the keyboard-to-string connection a little weird, so people shouldn’t be put off by that. I’ll offer this hint…
[spoiler]The orientation of the strings doesn’t seem to make any sense, but the keys do.
From what I can see, assuming Dr. Strangelove’s transcription is correct, it appears that each row of keys on your keyboard is basically like the white keys on a piano: from low to high, left to right.
The letters Q, A, and Z all seem to strike the same string, as do W, S, and X, and so on.
So I’m curious as to why you (Dr. Strangelove) used T when you could have used G. Is there a difference I can’t hear - an octave, perhaps?[/spoiler]
Heart of Dorkness:
G and T are the same thing, apparently. I guess that proves the point that I have no musical training–although I had guessed that the keyboard might map to a real piano keyboard, I in no way thought of it that way when playing around. It just happened that when I was punching keys at random trying to find the right note, I stumbled upon T before G, and thus used that instead of the “real” key.
Got it!
I found it pretty difficult until I read the OP properly and saw the part about being able to play the notes on the computer keyboard.
It’s actually possible to get a URL of your attempt, if you hit the record button. Here’s mine: Les Paul's 96th Birthday* . I need to work on my timing…
The Google guitar isn’t making any noise for me at all. I’ve checked my speakers and they play all other audio fine.
Maybe your browser is out of date? Are you using IE9, Firefox 5, or Chrome 12? Some earlier versions will work, but I can verify that these at least definitely work.
Well, truth be told, I don’t think anybody is ever completely self-taught. Nobody learns in a vacuum. There are always better musicians around (especially when you’re teaching yourself) to show you a thing or three.
I have years of violin and piano lessons under my belt. I couldn’t figure out how to do it with the mouse, but once I saw that I could use the keyboard, it was a piece of cake.
[spoiler]As far as I can tell you have to throw a black key in there too. Each row of keys plays the same notes, and I think they are G - A - B - C - D - E - F# - G - A - B.
I’m not sure what that scale is, as I said – self-taught, therefore winging it most of the time. [/SPOILER]
My mother dogged me into taking recorder lessons for a few months in 4th grade. Based on that less than scintillating experience…NO. No, I could not.