This tutorial demonstrates a particular strength of Qtractor: combine audio and MIDI tracks in one project. We started this tutorial with a part of one of our favourite musical works. Then we created a MIDI-based "alter-ego" to accompany the favourite work.

The audio recording contains a "theme and variations" movement, so the recording begins with a theme, then continues with modified versions of the theme. The theme has two parts, both repeated once. The original composer used several standard compositional techniques of their time period, so the music sounds similarly throughout, but constantly changes in subtle ways.

We are not required to follow the aesthetic rules that Beethoven followed. Some people think we cannot possibly follows the aesthetic rules that Beethoven followed. If we create new music for solo piano, we are already aware of 150 years' worth of music that stretched Beethoven's aesthetic rules. In this tutorial, we use the matrix editor in Qtractor, which does not resemble conventional Western musical notation—we cannot hope to achieve a similar result. This tutorial explores the artistic possibilities of a combination of early 19th century chamber music and early 21st century electronic music.

Finally, we encountered problems when we prepared this tutorial because we cannot distribute the audio recording that we used to create the MIDI component. Therefore, you will probably use a different audio recording than we used. Even when you follow our directions precisely, your result will be quite different from our result.