Assistive Technology

This is EXACTLY the kind of situation where I feel music technology is best suited: allowing people to do things that would be impossible without the technology. A lot of my gripes with applying technology to music is that it's more of a supplement than a necessity. The usage of SoundBeam, and any similar music technology, is not a supplement at all; rather, it makes something impossible possible. For those who haven't seen the video or read the article, SoundBeam is a technology that recognizes movements as computer commands, and then relays them to a computer which recognizes the movement as a certain pitch which is then relayed to MIDI. The technology reminded me very much of the technology used by partially paralyzed people to speak with a voice program; any movement or twitch can be used to make the technology function, given proper programming.

One of the common goals of any educator is to allow all students to benefit from their class; to appreciate the subject matter given to them. For those with physical disabilities, this presents obvious problems that it is our duty to address. How can we, as music educators, deny a child the right to enjoy and create music due to a disability? It's a problem with many creative answers, and SoundBeam is obviously one of them. It was inspiring to watch Ari create music using SoundBeam's technology, and let him experience something that every musician strives for. It would be difficult to use such technology in a group classroom setting, but that doesn't lessen the value of a tool like this.