Music Technology & Special Needs: Part 1 Página 1

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Published in SOS December 2012
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In Proportion Pioneering work in assistive technology is transforming Cubase
Digital Performer
Lateral Thinking the lives of people who are unable to play conventional
Live
Further Hurdles musical instruments. Logic
Terms & Conditions Pete Thomas Pro Tools
The Three Stages Of
Reaper

A
Music Making lthough many people feel nostalgic for the days of tape,
Reason
How Easy Should the rise of digital technology has made it easy for us to Sonar
Music-making Be? record faster, more cheaply and more in tune. It's also
Web Links given most of us new ways of disseminating our work. But for
some, the digital revolution hasn't just made music-making
easier or faster: it's made it possible.

We all know that in popular music image is all important.

Record labels love 'beautiful people'. It is interesting to note that
in the history of popular music, until performers such as Robert
Wyatt and Ian Dury emerged in the '70s, the number of disabled
performers was approximately zero — with one notable
exception. And despite the fact that the performer in question
was probably the most famous singer of the '30s, she is now
very much forgotten, in spite of the fact that she was a bigger hit Doug Briggs is a freelance specialist in assistive and
adaptive technology for music-making.
than Bing Crosby, taught Glenn Miller to arrange, and prompted
Ella Fitzgerald to say "I tried to sing like her all the time,
because everything she did made sense musically.”

So what happened to Connee Boswell? As a radio star, the public didn't need to know she had polio and was confined to
a wheelchair. But as visual media such as film and then television became more important, so her career went into decline.
The advent of sound in movies meant that Bing could be promoted as a film star. He is still a household name to this day,
but nobody wanted a star of the silver screen in a wheelchair.

What Is Assistive Technology?

For a few years I have been involved in fundraising to support
special-needs musicians, and recently decided I should find out
a bit more about it. Assistive Music Technology (AMT) is a term
coined by freelancer Doug Briggs, one of the pioneering
practitioners in making music accessible to those with special
needs. There is a common misconception that AMT is purely an
extension of music therapy, and I discovered that this is far
from the truth. Historically misconceptions also abound about
certain disabilities; for instance, percussionist Dame Evelyn
Glennie contends that deafness is largely misunderstood by the
public. She claims to have taught herself to hear with parts of
her body other than her ears, and often performs barefoot to
feel the music through her feet.

The world of assistive technology covers two distinct but very

much overlapping areas. On one hand you have what may start
purely as music therapy, but can awaken a real talent within Dr. Ian Gibson leads the Adaptive Music Technology
somebody who otherwise may never have had that opportunity. Research Group (AMTRG) at Huddersfield University.
Alternatively we could be dealing with an established musician,
who due to an injury, is suddenly projected into the category of 'disabled', like trumpeter Clarence Adoo of the Jazz
Warriors. Some of the technology is thus designed for beginners and for therapeutic needs, but some is for the creative
professional, or both.

My research for this article involved a tour of various parts of the UK to talk to some experts in the field, starting off with
a train journey up North to speak to experts in the field Doug Briggs, Dr. Ian Gibson and Mark Hildred at the Adaptive Music
Technology Research Group (AMTRG) at Huddersfield University. Ian is the group leader, Mark runs Apollo Creative —
a company researching, developing and producing AMT — and Doug is a freelance practitioner on the frontline of
education and performance, who initiated the idea of the research group. He has adapted many pieces of existing
technology for special needs education, and where tight budgets are concerned, is not afraid to get his hands dirty with
a roll of gaffer tape and a soldering iron.

Adapt & Survive

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Music Technology & Special Needs: Part 1 Página 2

It's significant that the name of the research group used the
expression Adaptive rather than Assistive Music Technology. "It
looks at adapting technology in novel ways,” says Ian Gibson.
"It could come from a disabled person battling against having
a limited ability in a certain area. We can make it easier for
those people to make music, a wonderful way of
communication. The other side is that we are all in a digital
world of music-making where the possibilities are infinite, and
therefore it becomes harder and harder to control the way we
make music. It works for disabled people to be able to make
music, and for non-disabled people to do it more easily. If you
have technology from the industry that makes it easier for Mark Hildred runs Apollo Creative, a company specialising
a non-disabled person, you should be able to adapt that for in adaptive technology for music.
people with special needs. It doesn't always work to design
technology solely for disabled people.”

"It's an interesting side-effect that if you do design something for a specific disability, often you do end up with a musical
instrument suitable for a whole range of people,” adds Mark Hildred. "It might introduce any very young children to music
making, or you might design something for mainstream music production as an iPad app, for example, which you discover
all of a sudden might be playable by somebody in a wheelchair using their nose.”

"We look at different approaches to making music, and then we see where they can be applied in a number of different
areas,” continues Ian. "For instance, we have a graduate student here who has developed an iPad app with a very simple
and intuitive interface for controlling surround sound by drawing a path, then manipulating it by the now familiar iPad two-
finger squeeze or three-finger rotation. So as well as just being easier for anyone, a person with the use of only three
fingers can control the mix.”

"It's interesting to see that the iPad is starting to find an increasingly important role within mainstream and assistive
music technology,” says Doug. "Several applications exist which turn the iPad into a touch-sensitive synthesizer as well as
a movement-to-audio converter, both of which can be used by some disabled musicians to make music.”

Three Stages
Doug Briggs explains that "In AMT there are three areas we need to think about: the input stage, the processing stage and
the output stage.”

Is this analogous to a typical modern digital recording situation where input corresponds to playing an instrument,
processing to sequencing and/or processing, and the output being listening to your mix? "Yes, but there are some big
differences. For example, you and I know that when you press a certain key on the keyboard you will hear that note, with
whatever processing, coming from the monitors. One of the biggest hurdles to overcome is to communicate this idea of
cause and effect. It can take quite a while for somebody with learning difficulties to associate the pressing of a button with
a sound coming out of a speaker some distance away. Because of these special needs, there may be quite a lot of
intervention and help at the input and processing stages, so it's different to a typical sequencing scenario.”

In this first article we'll be focusing mainly on the input stage, and the means by which a performer can generate MIDI
data. Mainstream music-making generally employs purpose-designed switches such as keyboards or drumpads, which are
built to output MIDI. For AMTRG's work, it's often necessary to make use of the plethora of generic AAC (Alternative and
Augmentative Communication) switches available, and in these cases, a separate MIDI conversion stage is required.
Electronics enthusiasts can make their own interfaces using an Arduino kit from Maplins.

"They are switches, but not integrated MIDI switches in the way you might think of a keyboard or drumpad,” says Doug
Briggs. "We can use those, but we also need to use many other types of switches to deal with the different abilities. For
example, one person may only be able to move their little finger, another their elbow. Somebody may not be able to move
any limbs, so we might have a switch activated by breath, or by sensing a sound they make.”

Doug gives some examples of the kinds of AAC switches which

can be adapted to musical purposes. "First we have momentary
switches, a simple on/off trigger. You hold it down for on and
release for off, or else you press it once and it latches, then
again to turn it off. It could be a big round switch, which we call
a jelly bean switch, or an eye-blink switch, for example.”

"There are a huge number of these switches to suit a whole

range of disabilities because simple on/off switches are used for
computer controls, wheelchair control,” continues Mark Hildred.
"There are switches you blow, switches you suck like a straw.”

"The possibilities are almost endless,” says Doug. "There are

many different types of switches from the world of AAC
available to us, and luckily there is a standard output, the Two typical AAC switches that can be adapted for use in
ubiquitous 3.5mm mono jack. We can use these to connect assistive music technology projects.
a switch to a MIDI interface, which can then address the
software in the processing stage. It makes sense to use these
off-the-shelf AAC switches and integrate them, rather than try to
develop thousands of dedicated AMT switches.”

In Proportion
As well as momentary or on/off switches, music-making also
requires variable-voltage switches that can output a range of
values. "These are what we call proportional or variable

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Music Technology & Special Needs: Part 1 Página 3

sensors,” says Mark Hildred. "We have specific ones like the
Soundbeam [the widely used system designed by EMS's Robin
Wood and composer Edward Williams], which is an ultrasonic
sensor that can detect how far away something is. And of
course, that was originally developed for dance, so it's an
example of something that has been adapted for AMT.”

"Another sensor we used was originally designed for sorting

potatoes, but discovered and adapted for music at the
University of York,” adds Doug.

"You see something and think 'I can use that!'” continues
Mark. "Some sensors and switches would be much too expensive for us to develop, but when they get used by the mega
corporations in the games industry, we can get something really low-cost and use or adapt it. Xbox wireless controllers are
a prime example.”

To what extent is it necessary to adapt triggers as opposed to buying them off the shelf? "It's an interesting area,
because with music, there's a huge amount of data to be controlled,” says Ian. "We are lucky because in recent years we've
seen companies like Nintendo tackle a similar problem. We are looking for controllers which allow broad gestures to control
a whole number of different parameters in one go, as opposed to just one parameter such as pitch, timbre or volume
individually. If you have one controller for each parameter, you would soon run out of fingers or things available to use for
these controllers. For some applications, a greater deal of customisation is required, that's where companies such as
Mark's [Apollo Creative] come into play.”

"Our system doesn't use the Wii controller, though it is possible to download software from the net to convert that data to
MIDI,” continues Mark. "From my point of view the data it can grab would be very useful, but the question is whether the
people who might benefit from a disability point of view could actually hold and use a Wii controller — it can take a lot of
physical effort. However, the interesting thing is because the MEMS chips that detect the rate of acceleration and position
are used by companies such as Nintendo and Apple in their products, all of a sudden the cost of them has dropped
dramatically because they are now being made in their millions, which makes it viable for a small company like us to put
them into a specialist product. We have some that are like an easier-to-use Wii controller, which is either handheld or
strapped to a wrist, elbow, leg — whatever. Every individual you meet has a different need.”

"People are actually getting more interested in this area, because of these new ways to trigger sounds,” explains Ian. "In
the past, people were just used to key presses triggering sounds. Things like the Wii have made people gain interest in
controlling sounds through other devices. Also people can now use images — there is all sorts of software now to map
images from webcams to musical parameters. I think people can often actually get more inspired to create music with
devices other than simple keyboards.”

Lateral Thinking
As well as being adapted to generate MIDI data, the switches themselves often need to be customised, as Doug explains.
"Everyone is different, so it makes sense to quickly knock something up out of household materials rather than go out
searching for expensive off-the-shelf products. For example, for one musician I gaffa-taped a piece of sponge to
a proximity sensor. The problem for children with learning
disabilities is that technology can sometimes get in the way of
cause and effect; they don't get the tactile feedback. Josie has
cerebral palsy, erratic motor control, and I just figured she
needed some resistance to press against, so she can actually
feel something is there, rather than just her hand moving
through air. It works really well with her. It's also a problem with
Soundbeam, which is an invisible beam in the air that effectively
converts movement along the beam to MIDI. To help children
understand the beam is actually there, I sometimes just tie
a piece of string along the beam for them to follow. I've also
started using Arduino boards to make very cost-effective
switch-to-MIDI interfaces.”
Adaptive technology is often a matter of finding simple and
"As musicians, we interact with our instruments in a physical practical solutions to problems. Josie O'Malley found it
way: we get vibration and feedback from them,” says Mark. easier to use this proximity sensor, and to associate her
actions as causes with the musical results as effects, when
"People are looking at things like video cameras and Microsoft
Doug Briggs taped a piece of sponge to it to provide tactile
Kinect as ways to interface, but the problem with that is you're feedback.
waving around in mid-air. It's difficult to work out how to get that
muscle memory going and get the physical feedback and learn
the repeatability. And if that equipment is set up slightly
differently next week — say the video camera is half an inch
further one way or the other — all of a sudden you make that
same motion in the air and it doesn't respond to you. That's why,
in spite of these amazing advances, a lot of the technology I'm
involved with uses physical objects people can interact with.”

There's also the question of what assistive technology should

look like. "Again it's an interesting area,” says Mark. "A lot of the
companies which produce the specialist equipment are quite
small, and the market is not massive in comparison with that for
standard instruments. You have to produce an item which might
be used by a young child who's happy with something that's
bright red and yellow. On the other hand you might also be
dealing with a professional musician who's been involved in

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Music Technology & Special Needs: Part 1 Página 4

a traumatic accident and been paralysed. They certainly don't

want something that looks like it belongs in a nursery. So we
find a balance between those two extremes and go for generic
shapes, sizes and colours which work for everybody. But if you
want to put it in a bright yellow enclosure, you can do.”

Further Hurdles
Despite all their achievements so far, the group are aware that
many further challenges remain. "The first big challenge for me
is to be able to use proximity and movement sensors to play
rhythmically,” says Doug. "Young people love rhythm, obviously,
there's a groove and it pulls them in. Even for a non-disabled
person it's extremely difficult to play a Soundbeam rhythmically.
I can address that problem to a certain extent using Sound Mary Jarvis performs using a Soundbeam system. Again,
a simple low-tech addition — a piece of string following the
Sculpture, but it's still a big challenge to go further with it.
line of the invisible beam — helped make the instrument
easier to use.
"Second, as we mentioned before, this idea of establishing
and reinforcing cause and effect is an enormous challenge with
the use of technology, which can often get in the way depending on how it's used. It's all very well having a piece of kit that
is easy and sounds great, but if they don't feel what's happening is caused by them intentionally, there is no learning. Cause
and effect is the first thing we aim for; we then establish intentionality, and learning flows from that.”

"A simple problem is, you've got a switch and you press it, but the sound comes out of the speakers over there by the
computer,” explains Mark. "It seems obvious to us, but only because we've already learnt that.”

"Somebody with learning difficulties might not make that connection for a long time,” continues Doug Briggs. "This is why
we sometimes prefer the idea of lots of different hardware boxes and modules. Even if everything can now be done in one
computer, it's easier for a teaching situation if what's going on is more obvious. This sensor talks to that box, which then
goes to that computer, and the sound comes out of this monitor.”

"If you have, say, six people all making music, and all the sound coming out of one pair of speakers, it's hard for them to
differentiate their own sound,” says Mark Hildred. "It's also difficult for the audience to know just what is going on, the
magnitude of the achievement. We've added lighting, video and images into our software, so not only might there be
a video, but the lighting can change to give a visual cue.”

"It's a performance language,” explains Ian Gibson. "The audience have to learn about how you are performing. They get
to understand that a certain gesture is particularly skilled. It's all about educating the audience as well as
supplementing the performance.”

Next month, we will be looking at a few more switches before moving on to the music processing and performance stage.
We'll look at the most oft-used software and hardware products, and explore some of the ways in which these have been
put to use by artists.

Go To Part 2 .

Terms & Conditions

There can be sensitive issues around labelling and language in any field relating to disability, so it might be helpful to
include here a short glossary, and introduce some of the most oft-used terminology. When referring to impersonal
topics related to non-disabled areas such as technology or educational institutions, it is best to use the word
'mainstream' rather than 'normal'. Public perception of the term 'disabled' means that it is sometimes better to discuss
'special needs', though we shouldn't be scared of using the terms 'disabled', 'disability' or 'impairment'.
Three specific terms used in this article are as follows:
AAC, short for Alternative and Augmentative Communication: a blanket term to cover communication methods used to
help anyone with impairments to write and speak.
AMT, short for Assistive (or Accessible) Music Technology: Music Technology which helps anyone with a disability.
AMT draws on mainstream and specialist music technology software and hardware and AAC software and hardware.
Adaptive: this is used to cover adapting other mainstream or AAC technology for AMT purposes.

The Three Stages Of Music Making

Input Processing Output
Momentary switches Mainstream sequencers and dedicated
Conventional monitors and headphones
& proximity sensors AMT software such as E-Scape
People with severe learning difficulties may need
Mainstream sequencers can be made
extra coaching to understand cause and effect —
These can include more accessible by the use of overlay
the relationship between operating a switch and
available AAC software like The Grid. AMT software
hearing the created sound — something most of us
switches, existing allows a teacher or 'conductor' to modify
take for granted, but it's this process which aids and
technology such as a performance, which can allow limited
reinforces learning. A musical performance can be
Wii controllers and physical triggering or people with learning
anything from a very basic performance which
proximity sensors. difficulties to create more complex musical
nonetheless produces a profound sense of self
Almost any 'switch' structures. Even profoundly disabled
worth, to a full-blown professional concert performed
can have a use. engineers can use proximity sensors to
and composed by creative musicians who would
operate faders and knobs on mixing desks.
otherwise be limited in ways to express their art.

How Easy Should Music-making Be?

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Music Technology & Special Needs: Part 1 Página 5

The power of digital technology to make things easier can be a double-edged sword. "One interesting thing to note is
Home | Tablet Mag | Podcasts | WIN Prizes | Subscribe | Advertise | About SOS | Wed 30 Oct 2013 Search SOS Have an account? Log in or Register for
how modern technology has changed people's perceptions of how quickly they ought to be able to play something,”
Help
says Mark Hildred. "Give them a clarinet and they know it will take a long time to get a perfect sound, but show them free
something electronic and their perception is they should be able to get something great-sounding very quickly. But you
need to also have something that's not just great for a couple of minutes — you need something you can develop and
grow and help you become a consummate performer. Balancing those ideas in the modern age when everything is
moving on so quickly is very difficult.”

Sound On Sound : Est. 1985

"Garageband is an interesting example, where it's very easy to get into something at an entry level, but once you
progress beyond that it's actually more difficult to achieve things than if you'd started off on a professional package,”
Search NewsIan Gibson.
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"We were in a situation where we had a group of young disabled people with Garageband, and they wanted our kit to
control it in real time for a performance,” continues Mark. "In a standard application you can pretty much map MIDI data
to control any parameter, but in Garageband you are really limited, Apple have it so 'locked down'. A few years ago we
could have tied any technology together, now we can't, because they've simplified it.”

Web Links
Apollo
www.apollocreative.co.uk
Doug Briggs
www.omnimusic.org.uk
Soundbeam
www.soundbeam.co.uk
Pete Thomas' web site, where sales of samples for Logic and Garageband (Sample Aid) have raised over £30,000 for
disabled musicians to date:
http://mediamusicforum.com/fundraising.html

Published in SOS December 2012

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