Pete Townshend

The Guitar of The Who

What I worked on is a freestyle piano piece that I played rather well (considering I am a guitarist and untrained on piano). However, this was a 'modal' piece: the atmosphere of the composition was maintained by sticking to particular scales and chord shapes. Occasionally, just once or twice, while playing a scale I broke the 'spell' of the mode (or scale) with wrong notes. Simply fixing the wrong notes – so easily done in DNA – restored the mood of the mode, and the spell now remains unbroken. Two or three small edits and a four minute piece is made whole.

This first piece I chose to edit is a critical composition for me, it is part of a series of freestyle piano performances recorded in a Yamaha Disklavier. Usually I can correct mistakes like this in MIDI and then simply have the Disklavier perform the piece again. In this case, for some reason, I did not record the MIDI when recording the audio from the Disklavier. I had staked a lot on DNA working. And it does work very well.

DNA allowed me to rescue one of the best freestyle piano performance of the series, and blend it in to the rest of the performances carefully edited in MIDI. I would have hated to lose it.

As a composer working often with spontaneous recordings made in haste, DNA is going to be a terrific tool for me. I may be able to rescue many pieces I've recorded in hotel rooms around the world over the years, which now would interest many Who and Pete Townshend fans, but I might feel shy about releasing them because of wrong notes. Now, I can make small fixes, and fans can enjoy old recordings without the distraction of wrong notes "breaking the spell".

Mistakes are often a good thing. Imperfection is a form of perfection – I understand that. But, in my work, the mood and context of a performance is more important than what notes are played or fluffed. The wonderful thing about DNA is that fixing certain problems obvious to me as a composer can make some lesser ones I created as a crazy performer seem delightful. By a strange quirk, fixing really obvious wrong notes or chords can actually make a spontaneous performance seem more spontaneous.

Performance first, editing next. Now I will take greater risks when extemporising on both guitar and piano knowing I can fix small fluffs in otherwise adventurous and fiery passages. I know there will be more practical uses for DNA, but this first experiment is one that opens up a world of adventure and risk-taking for me as an extemporising composer.

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