WHO member Pete Townshend, in close collaboration with mathematician-composer Lawrence Ball and software developer Dave Snowdon, is set to launch an Internet-based service that will allow anyone to create music online.

The service, dubbed Lifehouse Method, is essentially web-based software that “creates music, allowing you to ’sit’ for a musical portrait just as if you were being painted. The software ‘paints’ your music. It will only take a few minutes of your time,” the website says.

Reuters reports at CNET:

British rocker Pete Townshend on Wednesday unveiled an Internet-based software program that will help music fans compose personalized tracks at the click of a button.

The Who guitarist-songwriter said that with a voice recording, a digital image and a rhythm clapped into a microphone, his new “Method” software will create spontaneous digital music and allow anyone to be a composer, and possibly a rock star.

“You can put data in and get a piece of music out. It’s as simple as that,” said Townshend, a technical wizard who pioneered the use of the synthesizer more than 35 years ago on the classic Who tunes “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and “Baba O’Riley.”

The service will be available for free starting May 1. But it will eventually be available for subscription on August 1.