Who star to make beautiful music with girlfriend's dog

Barking all the way to the bank

Guitar smashing English rocker and internet enthusiast Pete Townshend has said he might use sounds made by his girlfriend's dog to create digital music.

"I as a composer would try to get something out of this dog that would give me the chance to turn the dog into music," he said.

"I might listen to the way it breathes, I might touch it and see how it feels, I might listen to its bark, I might look at the rhythm of his running."

The Who guitarist and songwriter has been talking up a web-based software program which he reckons can be used by anyone without a modicum of musical talent to compose a song, according to Reuters.

It's a project that Townshend has been thinking about since his art school days back in the pre-internet Swinging (yawn) Sixties.

The 62-year-old rock opera fanatic responsible for hit albums that include Tommy and Quadrophenia said: "You can put data in and get a piece of music out. It's as simple as that."

Townshend has endorsed the software, which is called Method and was developed by mathematician and composer Lawrence Ball and Dave Snowdon.

On the website, which is set to go live on 1 May, Method is explained as like "sitting for a portrait". The user "paints" the instrumental track using voice recordings, digital images, and a microphone to compose music.

A hand-picked team of composers then swoop in to work on the tracks. Townshend will sometimes join in to improve the music, adding more complex stuff which could eventually end up on a new album.

"It represents a whole new level of rock integration, blending rock and psychedelia with classical and experimental music," Ball said.

But ok, yes, we own up...

The rock star was joking about his girlfriend's dog, but he is deadly serious about the rest of it - including his hope that users will be happy to share the copyright of their original compositions. Your chance to become a rock god can be fully realised from 1 August when a subscription service will be made available on the website.

Surely, you would be barking mad not to sign up. ®