Having attended the the Drake Music Innovation Lab North at MadLab on 26th October ’15, I thought I’d touch base with Gawain Hewitt, Associate National Manager – Research and Development at Drake Music and seek his input. A brief conversation with Gawain (he was on a train at the time!) in mid-January ’16 pointed me towards some contemporary research and development in the field that I wasn’t previously aware of as well as offering some general food for thought.
SoundLab – “SoundLab aims to find simple and effective ways to help people with learning disabilities to express themselves musically and collaborate with other people using readily available musical technologies. We want to show how technologies can be brought together and combined to allow users new ways to make music.”
SoundLab is a project created and delivered by Heart n Soul “an award-winning creative arts company. We believe in the talents and power of people with learning disabilities.” based in The Albany, London SE8.
The team featured staff and artists from Heart n Soul alongside technical direction from Casper Sawyer of Public Domain Corp and a group of researchers/developers from Goldsmiths – including my Ph.D. External Advisor Dr. Mick Grierson.
The project was “funded by the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, a fantastic initiative created by Nesta, Arts Council England, AHRC and the National Lottery.”
Thoroughly documented via the SoundLab web site there’s a series of informative guides which not only offer practical advice but also share more philosophical, educational and participative perspectives around making music and learning disabled culture.
Gawain noted the involvement of Ashley Elsdon, Producer and Project Advisor Heart n Soul but also producer of Palm Sounds / @palmsounds – “The blog has up to date news and opinion about new mobile music making apps and hardware on the iPhone, iPad, Android and also other platforms…”. I vaguely remember connecting with Ashley while producing Cybersonica ’06 at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre and will likely follow up with him.
More generally we discussed the importance of:
- accessible musical instrument design;
- through an iterative design process;
- providing musical expressivity and a deeper practice (an exemplar being Roger Linn Design who pioneered many ways to be expressive such as polyphonic after touch + pitch bend into his instruments);
- adaptable to the setting;
- and offering easy individual customisation.
Gawain also suggested looking at research and development showcased through NIME – the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression which “gathers researchers and musicians from all over the world to share their knowledge and late-breaking work on new musical interface design.”