Current technologies, accessibility and education

How might some of the commonly used technologies fair when scrutinised within a British context of meeting the requirements of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act of 2001? In effect, this act amended the Disability and Discrimination Act of 1995 to include more specific requirements for education providers. There are two key inclusions aimed at further and higher education providers with similar, but separate, inclusions aimed at schools. In brief, these state that there is:

The key phrase in this statement is ‘reasonable adjustment’ which suggests that if there are alternative modes that can be used for communicating ideas or demonstrating techniques, modes that are perhaps more appropriate to an individual's specific needs, then these should be made available. This creates dilemmas for education providers. Perhaps most apparent is the desire for Further and Higher Education institutions to be seen as operating in-line with industry standards. For example, ProTools is widely accepted as being an industry standard studio recording technology and it is not unlikely that technology of this type will form the basis for studio recording practical sessions. From a creative perspective, ProTools is a powerful software-fronted recording environment which, as Savage and Challis (Reference Savage and Challis2001) have observed, is also intuitive enough for children as young as nine years old to work with creatively and independently. Unfortunately, and in stark contrast, it is also a particularly inaccessible environment for visually impaired (VI) users to work with (Zahradnicky et al. Reference Zahradnicky, Lorencz and Musil2008).

A second dilemma faced by some educational institutes is how to provide a practical experience for a large volume of students. As Boehm (Reference Boehm2007) observes, the general increase of HE music-related courses that incorporate both creative and technological elements can lead to courses being shared between different faculties; faculties that may operate on highly contrasting models of class-size. One resource that is likely to be in high demand is the recording studio. The very nature of the task, and size of environment, dictates the involvement of perhaps only a few people in a process that can sometimes be very long. There is obvious potential for this to impact upon the experience of students studying sound engineering, for example. However, as Eno (Reference Eno, Cox and Warner2004) reminds us, the recording studio is not the exclusive domain of the sound engineer, and should clearly be seen as a compositional tool. So, this same level of high demand is also likely to impact upon the experience of those studying popular music composition.

An alternative (or possibly additional) experience can be offered using computers running popular software as described earlier (Cubase, Sibelius, etc.) with perhaps a small collection of ‘plug-in’ virtual instruments. In practical terms this might be seen as a flexible, and therefore sensible, way of providing access to a wide variety of sound sources for compositional use. However, there are already a number of recognised design issues for users of software instruments and recording environments (Magnusson Reference Magnusson2006), not least that the two-dimensional screen is simply not an efficient way of navigating and controlling the number (and type) of physical controls that often need to be available. This is before any consideration has been given as to whether the user might have additional needs. For visually impaired students in particular, highly complex graphic environments simply do not lend themselves to access via screen-reading software such as JAWS or HAL. Where standard text is not available for the screen-reader to access, graphic objects need to be interpreted within an off-screen model such as that described by Kochanek (Reference Kochanek1994) where recognised items can then be referenced using a scripting system. This kind of adaptive software and hardware intervention can only really be achieved if the manufacturer of the original product is willing to collaborate at some level.

At this point, it is also worth considering the role of music notation within popular music education. Moore (Reference Moore1993) reminds us that the ‘primary medium of transmission of rock, since at least mid-1950s rock ‘n’ roll, has been the recording’, suggesting that where a notated rock score exists it will probably be transcribed. He does acknowledge, however, that notation has a valid place within popular music and cites the continued use of sheet music as evidence of this. Indeed, in the UK, the Rockschool graded exam series includes notated pieces and technical exercises. These qualifications are included within the British UCAS tariff for evidencing musical ability (see UCAS). Graphical notation of this type is difficult for visually impaired students or pupils to access and presents challenges for individuals with dyslexia. Although there are non-visual alternatives, such as Braille music and ‘Talking Scores’, these have inherent complexities of their own. Ockelford (Reference Ockelford1996) presents a detailed overview of both Braille music and ‘Talking Scores’ but, in brief, both are ‘displayed’ in a serial fashion with the reader being required to ‘read’ everything before effectively filtering out that which is not needed. Within this, there are also fundamental conflicts between Braille and Braille music. For example, the Braille codes for the musical letters A to G do not correspond to standard Braille for the same letters. In fact, they map onto the Braille letters for I J D E F G H; a potential source of confusion for those learning both systems simultaneously. Furthermore, not as many registered blind people read Braille as might be imagined; this figure may be as low as only two per cent (Bruce, McKennell and Walker Reference Bruce, McKennell and Walker1991).

What technological aids to accessing music notation are available to visually impaired music learners? Within academic research a number of projects have addressed this area. Challis and Edwards (Reference Challis and Edwards1997) proposed and prototyped a system that would allow blind musicians to browse a tactile structural overview of one or more pages of music. Using the ‘Weasel’ system (Challis 2000), music learners could press onto touch-responsive tactile overlays containing aspects of musical structure (bars, repeats, dynamics, etc.) and directly select extracts or phrases for immediate display. Filters could also be applied to enable the reader to focus on key music learning tasks (pitch, rhythm, fingering, etc.) with the notation displayed as audio playback, speech or potentially via a refreshable Braille display. Other non-visual approaches have since been considered by McKenzie and Marwick-Johnstone (Reference McKenzie and Marwick-Johnstone2008) and also by Nicotra and Quatraro (Reference Nicotra and Quatraro2008). However, accessibility to commercially computer-based notation platforms (e.g. Sibelius, Finale) is currently very limited (McCann Reference McCann2000). Although screen reading scripts for older versions of Sibelius (v.3) have recently been made available, the more current versions (v.4 and v.5) are, as yet, unsupported.

Issues over interaction in complex graphical software are not limited to visually impaired users; the on-screen interface can be difficult to manipulate for sighted users who have limited dexterity. Access by keyboard shortcuts may be available for many actions but the tendency to rely on floating toolboxes will usually require the use of a mouse, the control of which can be an issue by itself. Switch-based access is almost impossible. From a commercial perspective, the issue of how accessible technology should be will carry on for many years to come, but that is not the central issue here. The real question is whether reasonable adjustment can and should be made.

Novel instruments and interfaces employing gesture-based interaction

Much of the discussion so far has focused on the use of standard technology within a context of composition, recording and production, but there is still the area of music performance to consider. There are obvious issues in terms of accessibility with many conventional musical instruments, perhaps most noticeably a general reliance on well-developed fine motor skills. However, there are numerous novel technologies available that can assist significantly in terms of enabling access to practical music making. Some of these have been developed in part through academic research, e.g. MIDI Creator (Abbotson et al. Reference Abbotson, Abbotson, Kirk, Hunt and Cleaton1994), E-Scape (Anderson and Smith Reference Anderson and Smith1996) and MIDI Grid (Hunt Reference Hunt and Kirk1988). Others are commercial products that happen to incorporate naturally accessible features, e.g. Roland's Handsonic, Korg's Kaoss Pad, and most recently the Tenori-On from Yamaha. We should also remember that the Theremin (an early ‘hands-free’ electronic musical instrument) was itself naturally accessible; a feature that has led to this historic instrument finding continued use within music therapy (Magee Reference Magee2006). With this particular concept in mind, the remainder of this article is devoted to the discussion of two contemporary music performance technologies that also make use of gesture-based interaction: Soundbeam and the Benemin.

During this discussion, it will at times be useful to consider such novel technologies in terms of the different modes of performance behaviour they can facilitate. A framework for this is described by Malloch et al. (Reference Malloch, Birnbaum, Sinyor and Wanderley2006), who suggest three such modes of performance behaviours: skill-based, rule-based and model-based. Of these, the mode of musical interaction-behaviour most similar to that of playing a conventional musical instrument lies within the skill-based domain. The implication is that the user will be interacting in real time in response to a continuous audio-stream. The other two models of musical interaction-behaviour operate at increasingly abstract levels of interaction with the user's interaction being less and less involved in terms of overall control and ‘connection’ with the sounds being made.

Summary

In terms of accessibility, it would appear that the range of typical music production provision available in most educational institutes might be compromised by an underlying need to be visibly in-line with perceived technological standards as dictated by current industry practice. With this in mind, it is possible that many popular music, music production and music technology courses may simply not appear to be particularly inviting from the perspective of applicants with additional needs. Yet there are clearly accessible alternatives and enhancements available, many of which are just as valid for ordinary users as they are for those with additional needs. It is clear that there is significant under-representation by musicians with disabilities in the popular-music industry, and it could well be that a general failure to inspire and include within many aspects of music making at an educational level is a key factor within this.