Oskar Fischinger was a German-American artist, musician and animator who created mesmerising animations that paired together music and abstract visuals. He was born on June 22, 1900, and died on 31 January, 1967.

On Thursday, Google is honouring what would have been his 117th birthday with a Google Doodle – and it’s pretty amazing.

The Doodle lets anyone create music and visuals in the artist’s style. If you click on the customised Google logo, you’re taken to a kind of music pad that lets you enter in notes to create melodies, auto-generating visuals alongside them.

fischinger google doodle

Foto: It sounds better than it looks.sourceGoogle

You've got a choice of four instruments to choose from, and you can control the tempo, change the key signature, and overlay effects on the work, and it all updates the 16-beat score in real time.

It feels magical, and you can create flowing, harmonious melodies in under a minute, even with no musical experience whatsoever (or prior knowledge of Fischinger's work).

But it's impossible to really describe using text alone. You should go ahead and play with it, right now.

Once you've built one you're happy with, you can save it and share it. For example, here's a quick light-hearted melody I built. And another, faster piece. And another.

Here's an example of Fischinger's work:

"Second HungarianRhapsody" by Franz Liszt.An Optical Poem (1937)#OskarFischingerpic.twitter.com/LEKVgEpTrc

#OskarFischingerpic.twitter.com/LEKVgEpTrcJune21, 2017

Internet users have been captivated by the Google Doodle. One Twitter user called it "brilliant." "Mesmerizing," said another.

The Google Doodle will only stick around for a day, but after that it's not gone forever. There is a complete archive of old Google Doodles available to view and play with here. Enjoy!