In from the margins - enabling people with disabilities to learn and create music

Tim Anderson

doi:10.7577/if.v4i2.1552

Abstract

People with the most severe physical disabilities, for example who are only able to move their eyes, are at most risk of being left in the margins of society. They can communicate via 'eyegaze' text systems, but the challenge is to design an analogous music system to enable them to learn about, explore, and create music, so as to communicate and connect with others in a more universal way. The combination of eyegaze and music is a new area, so the design methodology relies on incorporating eyegaze features into an existing music system designed for switch-control. The design of this user-centred system has evolved over 20 years, with the continual involvement of disabled users and teachers. The resulting prototype eyegaze music system is designed to facilitate exploration and creative work without continual help to operate it, and was successfully tested by eyegaze users. This is the genesis of an instrument to enable anyone - even with the most severe disability - to participate and share in creative activities, and connect them more with society

Highlights

This article focuses on people who have great difficulty taking part in the kind of music-making and learning which are normal opportunities or activities for most people in society
Creating a musical work can allow them to connect with people who hear it, and let them communicate on an equal level with other people, and help them bring their voice 'in from the margins'
We look at how these features could be adapted to enable a viable working prototype to be developed as the first stage of eyegaze music system development, enabling the first users to operate it successfully and provide essential feedback

Summary

Introduction

This article focuses on people who have great difficulty taking part in the kind of music-making and learning which are normal opportunities or activities for most people in society. A methodology that emphasises customising learning" (Skogdal 2014a) This can provide a flexible framework which enables a teacher to set tasks and activity environments of varying difficulty, and tailor the level of support, eg to 'remove scaffolding' at points. These are ambitious aims - for the system to provide support for disabled students to participate at all in music eduction, and enable explorative learning by varying the level of support and challenge to maximise each student's learning opportunities

Design methodology

Future work

Conclusion