Six strings where the logo used to be
Click anywhere along a string and it sounds. Where you click matters: near the nut you get the low open note, further down the neck the pitch climbs, and the string visibly shakes for about a third of a second after you let go.
Drag across all six and you get a strum. Drag back the other way and you get the same chord in reverse, which sounds different enough that people do it twice to check.
the keyboard
The row of buttons under the neck maps to the open strings plus a few frets. It’s faster than the mouse once you’ve found a pattern, and it’s the only way to play two notes close enough together to sound intentional.
recording
Press record and everything you play gets timestamped. Press it again to stop, then play it back at the original tempo. It holds one take. Recording a second one wipes the first, which keeps people from treating this like a studio.
clean or overdriven
The clean tone is a soft pluck with a quick decay. Overdrive thickens it, adds a second detuned voice and holds the note longer. Neither is realistic. Both are recognisably a guitar, which is the bar this needs to clear.
what it came from
This started as a doodle for Les Paul’s birthday and it was supposed to run for a day. It stayed up for two because people would not stop playing it, and it has been rebuilt by other people ever since.
other things that make noise or need hands
Interactive tricks are rarer than visual ones. google zipper gives you a zip pull to drag down the middle of the page. google fan puts an oversized desk fan on screen and lets you aim it at the letters.
For playing rather than performing, google snake and google pac-man both run properly in the browser with a real scoreboard.
And if you want the page to react rather than respond, google gravity drops the whole interface on the floor and lets you throw the pieces at each other.