Today's Google doodle celebrates the music of Johann Sebastian Bach by giving anyone the opportunity to compose a little piece in his style. The doodle employs artificial intelligence to harmonize a melody which you can compose yourself within the doodle. 

The creative team behind the doodle explain how it works in this behind-the-scenes video:

This is not the first time that Google have celebrated a composer with a doodle. In 2015 they marked Beethoven's 245th birthday with a doodle which allowed people to play with the opening motif of his Fifth Symphony, and earlier this month Google produced a doodle celebrating Smetana's 195th birthday.

Today's Bach doodle is notable, though, for the way that it employs artifical intelligence. The creative team scanned and analysed 306 Bach compositions to allow the doodle to harmonize any melody that the user enters. It will harmonize in different keys and will play back the music at different speeds. The resulting compositions can then be shared or downloaded as MIDI files. 

You can explore today's Bach doodle and other notable doodles from Googles archive at google.com/doodles.

And you can find out more about Bach's life and music at our Johann Sebastian Bach page.