So hi everyone my name is Alex and today I'm going to be speaking about the
lifespan of bespoke, accessible music technology and in particular, ways in
which communities might be able to support its longer-term use. So I'm part
of the Performance Without Barriers research group, which is a collaboration
between Queen's University in Belfast, the Drake Music Project Northern Ireland and
Belfast-based makerspace Farset Labs. So together we look at ways in which
technology can help to provide access to music. To give you a bit of background
information, back in 2015 we held our first hack event. So we took music
technology students and we paired them up with disabled musicians and gave him
the task of co-designing some accessible music technology for the musician to use.
So here's Mary-Louise demonstrating an instrument that she co-designed.
The event was considered a success. There were several really interesting devices
created, so we planned a second event for 2016. Now one of the first things that
Mary-Louise wanted to do was continue working on her instrument that she had
designed a year previous but what she found was that unfortunately it no
longer existed. So the code had been lost and the hardware had been
disassembled. So this was really a catalyst for us really. We wanted to
understand more about this issue that we are facing in Northern Ireland that the
technologies that we were creating didn't have a particularly long lifespan
and this was the focus really of my PhD. So some initial reading highlighted
a really interesting point, that commercial off-the-shelf assistive
technology also has a fairly short lifespan in some in some cases.
Furthermore, the instruments presented at NIME each year face similar issues.
So we're assuming that this is a pervasive issue affecting disabled musicians more
broadly. Now the good news is that in the world of assistive technology some
experts have thought about this issue of what they referred to as 'device abandonment'
they've considered that and created frameworks to mitigate against it.
So one of which is the HAAT model which is shown on-screen at the moment. So at its heart
the HAAT model states that there are four interconnected elements, each of which
need to be carefully considered in order for assistive technology to be effective.
And if it is effective then it's going to exhibit a greater likelihood of being
used over a prolonged period. So those four items are the human,
I prefer the term person. So we have a person, who's looking to take part in an
activity, and in order to do that they're using some technology, some assistive
technology. And those three items, they sit within a particular context.
So we decided to take this model and then invite a musician from Drake to
collaborate with us in co-designing an instrument. And what we were
particularly interested in was seeing if we could support the longer-term use of
that instrument. So we targeted a period of two months, that was our goal.
So here's Eoin, he's been making music with Drake for about three years now.
And he has a real eclectic taste in music ranging right through from
drum and bass to classic rock. He's pictured here with his dad Peter.
Peter is one of Eoin's primary carers. Eoin is disabled from playing
traditional musical instruments. The activity that he had in mind was
that of playing electric guitar. So to help guide the design process we created
two user stories at the beginning of the project. So I'll read those out to
you now. Number One - As a musician I would like to perform with electric
guitar sounds in a live environment. I must be in control of my
instrument when performing and it must be comfortable for me to play.
The second user story is - As a composer who works on new material regularly, I want
my instrument to be relevant and applicable to the music I'm composing.
I want the instrument to integrate into my workflow. So two user stories there covering
composition and live performance. The context - well there were a couple of
different contexts in which this instrument would be used but, one of
which was the weekly music workshop that Eoin would attend at Drake. So in this
particular context, the use of technology is facilitated by an Access Music Tutor.
So, in this case, it's Danny. So we needed to ensure that Eoin's instrument had an
appropriate feature set that it would be able to fit into the activities that
that Danny, Eoin's access music user was planning for these weekly workshops.
The other main context was that of the home environment.
So in this context it would be Peter who would be facilitating the use of Eoin's
instrument. So Peter doesn't have a background in music technology so we
really need to think about usability from his perspective. So jump ahead a few
months and this is the instrument that we developed. It's self-contained, its
standalone, it has, it features a built-in speaker. And it recreates the sound of
the guitar using sample-based technology. Eoin plays the instrument through the
use of a wristband. So this wristband has a motion sensor
inside and Eoin moves his right arm upwards and downwards to strim, sorry to strum
the strings of his virtual guitar. And then an access switch is used to select
a chord to play. So here's a short video of Eoin demonstrating the instrument.
And apologies for the slight lag in the video.
So I'm pleased to say that Eoin was able to use the instrument for two months, and
during that time we saw some improvements in his technique. And Eoin,
he'd like to continue using the instrument in the future so all positive stuff.
What did we learn through this process? Well, we went into the project
knowing that Eoin faced barriers in making music, what I didn't fully
anticipate were the barriers that might be faced by the people facilitating its use.
So in particular Peter, he needed quite a lot of guidance in how to
operate and how to set up the instrument for Eoin to use. At the end of the
two-month period Peter had become somewhat of an expert, but what it also
meant was that if Peter wasn't available to help
Eoin set up his instrument then Eoin wasn't able to use it. So that was a
barrier in itself. It was difficult for somebody who hadn't been trained in its
use to pick up instrument and set up for Eoin to use. The instrument was
developed with limited resources so we expected there to be some bugs. Now I did
notice a few myself during this two-month period, but what was quite
interesting was that neither Eoin or the facilitators reported any issues with
the instrument at all. So this wasn't a barrier to the instrument
being used. So it's it's hard to say, I mean this is probably likely to change
over a longer period of time. And there's always this likelihood that feature
requests might start to come through as well.
Now, I'd thought that these instruments were inherently unique. Now though whilst
the way in which Eoin interacts with the instrument is unique to him and the
movements that he has available to him, under-the-hood we're using some very
common components. So there are several Adafruit breakout boards for
instance between using this instrument. I did develop some resources, a lot of code
from scratch. But this code that I've developed is likely to have reuse value
in other bespoke instruments. So there's a real
opportunity here, I think, to standardise, or to begin to standardise aspects of
these seemingly very bespoke accessible instruments. That leads us on
really to this idea of community, and there's some fantastic examples of this
in the world of assistive technology, where communities of makers and disabled
people have been mobilised to design and fabricate and provide assistive
technologies to people who need it, at a very low cost. So 'atmakers.org'
and 'enablingthefuture.org' are two great organisations that I encourage
you to take a look at if you're interested. Another organisation to
to note here is the DM Lab, the Drake Music Lab in England. And they're doing
some fantastic work, again to kind of connect disabled musicians and
technologists and to collaborate on the development of these technologies.
I think there are a few benefits in doing this. If we're able to share
resources, collaborate on their development
we'll improve their overall quality. And we'll make it easier for these
instruments to be developed, and if we're able to do that then more disabled
musicians will gain access to music, and then we'll all benefit from the music
which is being created by these enabled musicians. So, on that note
if anything that I've spoken about during this presentation is of interest
to you, please do read the paper, there's lots of interesting
details in it. And do get in touch with us if you'd like to ask any questions or
if you'd like to collaborate potentially in the future as well. So you can reach
us on 'performancewithoutbarriers.com/contact'. So visit that web page
and you can send us an inquiry. Thanks for listening and enjoy the rest
of the conference, thank you!