Blind and partially-sighted musicians' lives: Insights into musical practices, participation and trajectories

Lead Research Organisation: University College London
Department Name: Culture, Communication and Media

Abstract

The project will investigate the experiences and life trajectories of amateur and professional blind and visually-impaired (BVI) adult musicians. Our objectives are to understand the acceptance or marginalisation of BVI musicians within professional, amateur and educational musical communities; their involvement with different musical styles, instruments, practices and roles; opportunities and barriers they perceive in relation to personal development and participation throughout the life-course, along with their adaptive strategies; and their learning practices, both when they were children and into adult life, including how, for example, a blind professional musician prepares for a concert. Findings from our pilot study have indicated that BVI musicians tend to feel, on one hand, excluded and discriminated against; and on the other, highly respected amongst musicians generally for their abilities. Overall, there is a pressing need to develop and share information and increase understanding. The findings will be relevant for many parts of the musical community, including employers such as orchestras, educational providers including conservatoires and schools, music therapy organisations, community music groups, and others.

Our investigation will begin with a questionnaire survey extended to 700 musicians who are currently registered with the RNIB (Royal National Institute for Blind People) as being BVI musicians. The survey will explore the demographics of musical participation (e.g. age, gender, instrument choice, reasons for starting or stopping musical participation, musical idiom, training background, and so forth). A purposive sample of approximately 40 of the adult participants will then be invited to contribute detailed life history interviews. The interviewees will represent a range of genres and instrumental disciplines, with a mix of professional and amateur performers, composers and teachers. They will be of various ages and sight-loss backgrounds. The study will look at their musical pathways from childhood to adulthood, their life-course issues, their musical practices, perceived barriers, and successful adaptations to musical participation.

There will be two half-day seminars held at the Institute of Education, University of London to allow respondents to network, reflect on preliminary findings and offer feedback, and feedback will also be sought throughout the fieldwork process. Our pilot interviewees highlighted the need to belong to a community of music practitioners who share a disability, since this augurs for gaining information necessary for musical development. A website will be created that is accessible both to sighted and BVI visitors. It will be search-engine optimised and linked to the RNIB site and other prominent music industry sites; and the aforementioned survey will be linked to this site. The website will assist in recruiting participants and sharing information about the reflective seminars, our main conference event and findings. There will also be a blog to which the research participants can contribute, thus assisting in building a national network of BVI musicians. These blog reflections will become part of the analysis with respondents' permission. Finally, the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) have agreed to invite the PI, CI and RNIB colleagues to present findings within the LRAM diploma and Open Academy programmes; from this platform, outreach days will be formed that engage music undergraduates in powerful, life-enhancing practical experiences with BVI adult musicians and children.

Planned Impact

The project will raise awareness of BVI musicians and, in light of the present lack of information, have the potential to feed into policy at institutional, local government or community level.

Music-making occurs within formal settings such as concert-halls, schools and universities but also in isolation from specialist knowledge, which is a concern. Amateur and leisure activities (such as small instrumental groups, ensembles or music productions) can occur in village halls, in pubs or clubs, or in people's homes. Many sighted musicians are unsure where to access information that will allow them to counter the social exclusion of BVI musicians and raise participation. During our pilot, every interviewee mentioned exclusion. Findings will help community organisations such as amateur orchestras to serve the needs of someone who, for instance, is losing sight and wishes to continue participating effectively.

This issue of isolation from necessary knowledge is significant, too, when one considers that a vast quantity of qualified and unqualified instrumental teachers operate from home. We will optimise our site for search engines and link it to the online presence of bodies such as Local Authority music hubs, professional and community organisations, and national examination boards, creating widespread access. There will be an 'open' invitation to musicians (i.e. amateurs, professionals, delegates from other institutions and organisations) interested in attending our main conference event.

The RNIB will also take the lead in dissemination to its international partner organisations. Furthermore, outcomes will be useful to curriculum designers, particularly the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM), which is a major international stakeholder in instrumental examinations. Owing to their previous research, the PI and CI have an established, dynamic working relationship with the ABRSM Syllabus Director, Dr Nigel Scaife. He and Jacqui Seal, who is responsible for ABRSM special needs, are interested in this work and its potential ramifications for the accessibility and structure of their music syllabus.

The project will develop knowledge that will assist conservatoires, working particularly with the Royal Academy of Music (RAM), to assess and develop its opportunities for both sighted and BVI students. The RAM is actively engaged with outreach and community music-making. The project will, through talks given by the PI, CI and RNIB partners, allow RAM students to understand the practices and issues surrounding BVI musicians and, consequently, engage with them more effectively. Findings will be threaded into their LRAM diploma and undergraduate programmes. The RNIB, RAM and Institute of Education (IoE) will form suitable musical collaborations that will bring together sighted undergraduates and BVI musicians (adults and children). This augurs for the 'preparedness' of future music educators and community music leaders to cater for this group. The immediate impact will be one of improving 'quality of life' for the BVI attendees. These events will also enhance wider cultural life into the future. It is hoped that the RAM, one of the 'Royal Schools of Music', will serve as a 'flagship' conservatoire in this respect for Conservatoires UK.

The website, reports and other publications will highlight both unique and shared BVI lived experiences, which were previously the private domain of individuals. The website will raise interest and participation in the research. The reflective seminars, blog and conference, which are part of the research process, will bring together BVI individuals with common experiences and, as such, will assist in the development and strengthening of the national network of BVI musicians. Our pilot interviewees underscored the need to belong to such a community.
 
Description We were in contact with approximately 400 visually-impaired (blind and partially-sighted) musicians altogether; we collected specific questionnaire and interview data from 225 people, broken down as follows: interviews with 48 visually-impaired musicians/music teachers of whom 20 also completed our questionnaire; and interviews with an additional 6 sighted music teachers who work with visually-impaired learners (in private instrumental teaching, mainstream and special schools) (54 interviews in total). We also collected questionnaire data from an additional 171 visually-impaired respondents (so 191 questionnaire responses overall). The visually-impaired respondents had a wide range of sight conditions and points of sight degeneration from hereditary, congenital causes to accidents and disease. Forty-two of the interviewees were from the UK, 6 from the USA, and 2 from Australia, with individuals from Colombia, Indonesia, Malaysia and New Zealand. The mean age of the 51 who declared was 44.04 years (standard deviation, SD = 15.28), with the youngest interviewee being 18, and the oldest 73 years of age. Thirty-five of the interviewees were blind and 13 were partially-sighted. There were 78 questionnaire responses (40.84%) from the UK; 48 (25.13%) from the USA; 23 (12.04%) from Australia; 13 (6.81%) from Colombia; 5 (2.62%) from New Zealand; 4 (2.09%) from Canada; 2 (1.05%) from Austria, 2 from Italy and 2 from Kenya; and single respondents from Chile, Croatia, Egypt, Estonia, Fiji, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, the Republic of Ireland and Russia. One hundred and forty-six (79.44%) classed themselves as blind, the rest partially-sighted. The age distribution was: 40 of 18-24 years; 50 of 25-34 years; 29 of 35-44 years; 27 of 45-54 years; 33 of 55-64 years; and 12 of 65-74 years. *History and traditions: There are worldwide traditions of blind musicianship, which frame the way that society considers visually-impaired (blind and partially-sighted) people's musical participation. There have been visually-impaired musicians amongst: the Limba ethnic group in Sierra Leone; minstrels in the Ukraine; guilds of blind musicians; in Japan reaching back to feudal times; other folk musics throughout history; in the early jazz of the US Southern States, as well as contemporary popular musics; and in classical music, including professional and amateur musicians around the world, some of whom attended our conference at the UCL Institute of Education, London, 10-11 March 2015 (see Engagement Activities). Surrounding all this is social lore, too, such as higher religious wisdom being attributed to itinerant minstrels or the sighted person's assumption, correct or otherwise, that in the absence of one sense another is augmented. There are diverse views on such matters. *Musical participation: Our expectation that visually-impaired musicians would be most heavily involved in genres or activities that rested less heavily on print notation than aural transmission, such as folk, pop, traditional music, or jazz was challenged: 53.93% (103) of respondents played classical music; 47.64% (91) popular music; 29.32% (56) traditional or folk music; 27.75% (53) jazz; 16.75% (32) early music; and various other types of music were also mentioned. They also played (and in some cases taught) a diversity of instruments including: voice; keyboard, stringed, woodwind, brass and percussion instruments associated with classical music; instruments used in early music, e.g. the lute, theorbo and viola da gamba; but also the penny whistle, the Indian harp, sitar, dhol and harmonium, the Iranian tar, didgeridoo, accordion, harmonica, electronic keyboards, the Japanese shakuhachi and drum kit, etc. *Technology use: Technology has increased the possibilities for music making amongst visually-impaired musicians, e.g. through the use of mainstream applications for music production (e.g. Digital Audio Workstations, engraving software, with the production of digital Braille) used in tandem with accessibility tools (e.g. text-to-speech screen readers [JAWS, NVDA], magnification software). This has created a diversity of ways in which the musicians can learn, create and share their music. However, the rise of digital music technology has also caused difficulties for some visually-impaired people, not least because it is considered specialist knowledge from which some people feel isolated. With rapid software release upon release, there have been applications of varying degrees of accessibility and some, after being used, become inaccessible. In audio production software, for example, there have been mouse-driven graphic representations of knobs and sliders on mixing desks that are displayed on VDUs without recourse to keystroke and screen reader control. Touchscreen technology has also presented its problems. We came across people developing access scripts for mainstream music software, or finding programmers to help them make applications accessible, or creating their own software to share. Technology has also had implications for music careers: there was some evidence the visually-impaired musicians are excluded from work in mainstream recording studios due to their use of applications on Mac computers, which have, until recently, been inaccessible to screen readers; this, tends to lock visually-impaired people into project or home studios on the PC. *Visual score media and deteriorating sight: For many with partial sight, scores were used but often with problems. This particularly affected musicians who wished to participate in classical music and ensembles such as choirs and orchestras. There were various specific problems for those who were accustomed to reading notation in the past and were losing their sight. People working from enlarged stave notation, perhaps with poor sight or reduced visual fields, faced the potential unmanageability of large sheets of paper, coupled with, say, a poor quality photocopy enlargement. The eye could not sweep across the score except for a few bars at a time; it became much more a process of the gradual memorisation of music, bit by bit. This was also true of digital scores on, for instance, tablet technologies that have emerged in recent years where just a few enlarged bars are displayed and prompted forward by a foot pedal. *Braille music and approach: Braille music could make sight reading challenging too, with obvious consequences for musical participation in contexts reliant on sight reading from sheet music (e.g. the orchestra). An instrumentalist working from Braille music would commonly iterate back and forth between touching and, separately, playing, whilst perhaps cross-referencing with audio. There were exceptions, such as the possibility for singers to have a Braille score in front of them whilst performing. Of course pianists need to engage one hand with the piano keyboard at a time, whilst feeling their Braille score with the other. Learning music from Braille was often a process of chunking though; a laborious process of absorbing small parts at first, until locked into the procedural memory. Sighted musicians may memorise similarly no doubt, but for the Braille user and advocate, this may be the primary way. *Braille music and its digital form: Our questionnaire revealed that 52.36% (100) of the respondents could read Braille music even if they did not use it, which does seem high given published research on Braille use. Some of our respondents described Braille as the right to musical literacy, whereas others felt music could be learned by ear anyhow so there was no need for it. Braille services for music and advocates like Lydia Machell (Prima Vista, UK) were supporting users, however Braille transcriptions from printed music notation were often thought costly and time-consuming to obtain; this, in turn, sometimes challenged musical participation in sighted ensembles. Prima Vista, Lydia's company, was working with some of the mainstream music publishers, who provided her with their digital production files of stave notation scores. With her software, she, then, turned them into a Braille Ready Format (.brf) digital file that could be used with, for instance, a digital Braille embosser or other device. The cooperation of music publishers in this way will increase access for Braille music readers. *Schooling and pedagogy: We discovered a wide range of opinions on whether or not mainstream or special schools for the visually impaired were the best place to be educated musically. A number of items on our questionnaire included a five-point rating scale from Strongly disagree (or 1) through Neither disagree nor agree (3) to Strongly agree. The statement Sighted music teachers are generally aware of the needs of VI learners produced a mean of 2.05 (SD 0.99, 137 responses), or an average response of Disagree. Furthermore, Visually-impaired people have better musical learning experiences in mainstream schools than special schools produced a response of 2.76 (SD 1.08, 127 resp.). Perspectives were linked with where interviewees were themselves educated, and also the changing landscape of schooling for the visually impaired. In favour of special schooling, some respondents said it provided more expert help from music teachers with an understanding of the needs of visually-impaired learners, and skills such as literary and music Braille; a more supportive environment generally; and less likelihood of feeling different; or being bullied thus withdrawing from group musical participation. In favour of mainstream schooling, issues such as more opportunities to take part in a greater range of activities and more opportunities to make friends with local children were cited. *Disability arts scene: Some respondents suggested the demands on independent mobility required for a music career made it difficult to be a professional musician, and others pointed to discrimination amongst employers or other musicians. The statement Discrimination limits the ability of visually-impaired people to engage with music throughout their lives produced a mean of 3.43 (SD 1.08, 143 resp.) or a measure of agreement. Such factors as dependent mobility and perceived discrimination have contributed to the formation of disability ensembles whose aim is to increase opportunities. These included: the Inner Vision Orchestra, from London, a world music ensemble, led by the Indian musician, Baluji Shrivastav; the British Para-orchestra, which played at the London 2012 Paralympics with the pop band Coldplay, led by conductor Charles Hazelwood; the Al Nour Wal Amal (Light and hope) Chamber Orchestra in Egypt, which is comprised entirely of visually impaired women; the Korean Traditional Music Orchestra of the Blind; the Argentinian National Symphony Blind Band (Maestro Pascual Grisolia); and, in Chennai, India, the St. Louis Blind Orchestra, which performs music from Tamil cinema. Viewpoints on disabled music ensembles were mixed. Some musicians were fully in support of such ensembles. Many considered it impossible to divorce themselves from being a blind musician anyway; and some went further, to market themselves that way. As an example, one respondent, from Kenya, considered himself a disabled rights activist through his music, visiting schools and universities to perform it; he was a rapper and his music is about fighting the challenges of being visually impaired. Others reflected that grouping an ensemble together due to a disability was a terrible idea. One reason was that the amount of visually-impaired musicians was relatively small (a low-incidence disability group), so the musicians would be so diverse in standard and the quality of the music poor. Some wanted to be regarded as just a musician, not a blind musician: it was the quality of the musician that mattered, and they said if you're good enough, visual impairment shouldn't matter. One singer talked about being, in childhood, the little blind girl who miraculously could sing so well (something that sighted people thought was a special dispensation due to her blindness), and that had followed her across her life. She said it was like participating in inspiration porn but could never quite understand what she was inspiring sighted people to do.
Exploitation Route Information gathered on technology use (both accessibility technology and music-production technology) evidences a need for wider training (e.g. of pre-service and in-service teachers and visually-impaired people alike); it also bids cooperation in the technology industries and further software development. We intend to forward a bid to AHRC for follow-on funding (see Other Outputs and Knowledge/Future Steps) that would allow us to work with colleagues in the Department of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science at Queen Mary University of London to create solutions to inaccessible music production software, etc. Academics and researchers in fields of education, sociology, psychology and popular music studies will wish to build on our findings on visually-impaired musical acquisition approaches so as, for instance, to ascertain the benefits or downsides to specific strategies for general musical development, i.e. in wider society. Findings on schooling, centering on access and inclusion, teachers' knowledge and skills, will be of great interest to policymakers and stakeholder groups too (e.g. charities like the RNIB, the National Foundation for the Blind, World Blind Union, and the European Blind Union, etc.); as will be the existence of disability ensembles and surrounding qualms about employment discrimination, independent mobility and marginality. Finally, discoveries about pedagogy and learning can be used by teacher trainers (in schools, universities, music conservatoires and teacher-training establishments) for engagement in reflective practice and the development of sound teaching practices for the future (please see Engagement Activities for the outreach we devised during this project).
Sectors Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Leisure Activities, including Sports, Recreation and Tourism,Government, Democracy and Justice,Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections
 
Description David Baker published an article in the British Journal of Music Education on the project pilot and a second (i.e. Baker and Green, 2016), focussing specifically on learning, pedagogy and visual impairment has been published by Research Studies in Music Education (see Publications). Additionally, David Baker and Lucy Green co-authored a book concerning various aspects of visually-impaired (blind and partially-sighted) musicians' lives which has been published by Routledge (2017) and is widely available to the general public, including visually-impaired people themselves. This is available in hardback and e-book since 2017, and paperback since 2019. Findings on learning and pedagogy were also fed into training at the Royal Academy of Music, London (see Engagement Activities), with talks to staff members and students by the research team, and this led to musical outreach within the visual impairment unit of a London primary school, which enhanced the artistic experience of the children concerned. We also disseminated findings through a two-day international conference held at the Institute of Education, University of London in March 2015, presentations and films available on the internet (see Engagement Activities), the dissemination of summary reports, and visits (e.g. to the Music Technology Lab for the Visually Impaired at Berklee College of Music, Boston, USA).
First Year Of Impact 2014
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Creative Economy,Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Education,Government, Democracy and Justice
Impact Types Cultural,Societal
 
Description Baluji Music Foundation
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Membership of a guideline committee
Impact The Principal Investigator, David Baker and Co-Investigator, Lucy Green were both invited to become members of the steering committee of the Baluji Music Foundation, a UK registered charity that supports blind and partially-sighted musicians based in London. Lucy Green is presently its Chair. The charity has an integral world music ensemble, the Inner Vision Orchestra, which provides the opportunity for blind and partially-sighted people, of various musical backgrounds and standards, to come together as a community and be enriched by musical participation. The orchestra also tours and, within its concerts, threads in members' accounts of issues in their lives, as blind and partially-sighted people, to spread wider awareness. The researchers have been able to draw on project findings to advise on matters of touring, mobility, liaising with concert venues, and workshop activities held by the group.
URL http://www.balujimusicfoundation.org/
 
Title Visually-impaired musicians' lives (VIML) website 
Description We developed a website for our project, hosted as a subdomain of the busy UCL Institute of Education website. It was tested by colleagues at RNIB using popular Screen Reader technologies (e.g. JAWS, NVDA); and it also included various colour and contrast options in addition to a text re-sizing script, in order to be accessible to blind and partially-sighted visitors. Our project questionnaire was linked to the site and it includes summary findings and various other information. 
Type Of Technology Webtool/Application 
Year Produced 2013 
Impact The website was a prime way to advertise our project, raising the number of study participants, to share information, and it increased interest in our conference event (see Engagement Activities). It assisted, therefore, in the networking activities of: professional practitioners in this arena (e.g. teachers from mainstream and special schools, and professional musicians); academics and students interested in this subject; members of charities vested in this field; and blind and partially-sighted musicians and musical learners worldwide. 
URL http://vimusicians.ioe.ac.uk/
 
Description Nordic Network on Disability Research (NNDR) conference, Bergen, Norway 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact In May 2015, David Baker gave a presentation on the project and its findings at the Nordic Network on Disability Research international conference in Bergen, Norway (6-8 May 2015). Attendees were academics, postgraduate students, members of charity organisations and professional practitioners working in the disability sector from across the world. This generated questions and discussion on the manner in which music can contribute to the lives of blind and partially-sighted people; and about the challenges and opportunities for accessible approaches. There was great interest in the publications arising from this project (see Publications) and also in future research and engagement work planned in this arena.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://www.cvent.com/events/nndr-13th-research-conference/event-summary-874cd3c94ce04d119a5ad0dcf912...
 
Description Royal Academy of Music (RAM) outreach, London 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact The life histories we collected from visually-impaired musicians, (in tandem with both qualitative and quantitative data from our survey), revealed some powerful insider accounts of musical learning, schooling and also information on apt music teaching practices for visually-impaired musical learners (children and adults). These will be reported in our forthcoming book, which is under contract with Ashgate Press (Taylor and Francis), and a research article that has been accepted for publication by Research Studies in Music Education (see Publications). With the generous support of Dr Anthony Gritten (Head of Undergraduate Programmes, Royal Academy of Music) and Julian West (Head of Open Academy), these findings were shared with students from the Royal Academy of Music, a world-renowned music conservatoire, through two presentations (one by David Baker, Principal Investigator, the other, a practical music workshop, led by the Music Advisory Service of the Royal National Institute of Blind People, RNIB). Most of the Academy's students will become music educators (to various extents) as part of a portfolio career and, thus, they may encounter disabled students, including those with visual impairments.

Following these presentations, we organised for a group of Academy students to trial their new understandings; they worked with visually-impaired children at Edward Wilson Primary School, London on three days in November 2014 in creating a musical performance based on the BBC's 10 Pieces. This activity put our research findings to practical use as the conservatoire students were able to apply and test them in situ. It raised awareness, in these sighted musicians and future music educators then, in addition to staff members at the Academy. This was a critical chain from the voices of visually-impaired musicians (on schooling, learning and teaching methods) through reported findings to practical experience and reflective practice, which assured the longer-term impact of this AHRC-funded research project.

Attendees at our talks reported increased awareness of disability and its relationship to music education. The presentation by David Baker led to a discussion of issues with questions and comments from the Academy students. The Academy's participants in the music outreach reported that they had developed a better understanding of learning processes, differentiation in learning and inclusive teaching practices, which they could take forward into their careers. The children were inspired and enjoy
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
 
Description Short film for faculti.net 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact David Baker had a short interview about the project filmed for faculti.net which is available to the general public, academics and university students across the world.

Faculti.net is an online learning platform and app that helps anyone access cutting-edge academic and professional information. The platform and Prep app offers free video insights of the latest research and advances from across the worlds leading institutions. Through individual, academic and professional subscriptions, members have access to the Prep Plus video library of accessible, engaging, informative insights delivered by leading experts.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL https://faculti.net/academic/search?q=david+baker
 
Description Visit to Berklee College of Music, USA/filmed presentations 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact From 1-8 December 2014, David Baker visited the Music Technology Lab for the Visually Impaired at Berklee College of Music, Boston, USA. He met with blind and partially-sighted music students in HE and academics working in this field (including a staff member of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) in order to gain further information on music technologies, their accessibility, and the development of new possibilities in that regard, including those being developed at MIT. David also presented on the current AHRC-funded project at the Stan Getz Library, Berklee, which was filmed and uploaded to their web resources for staff training purposes. Attendees included undergraduate and postgraduate students, blind and partially-sighted musicians, teachers from special schools, and Berklee staff members. David also participated a panel discussion about Berklee's Music Technology Lab, issues for blind and partially-sighted students in HE, and the UK context, with Berklee staff members and a music teacher from Perkins School for the Blind (which feeds the institution). This reached staff members at the college and engaged them in reflection. Additionally, it has led to Berklee and its Music Technology Lab formally agreeing to support a recent bid we have made for AHRC follow-on funding (see Other Outputs and Knowledge/Future Steps).

The visit will be a good opportunity to disseminate project findings, but also to meet academics in the US actively involved in researching visual impairment and developing courses for visually impaired musicians. Some of these contacts have already put us in touch with stakeholder organisations in their country (which, significantly, serve a global network of visually impaired musicians, specialist teachers and teacher trainers, and academics in this field) and we envisage this opportunity will
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2014
URL https://library.berklee.edu/about-us/event/insights-sound-visually-impaired-musicians-lives-and-lear...
 
Description Visit to Sydney Conservatorium of Music (University of Sydney) and Vision Australia 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact In March 2015, David Baker visited New South Wales, Australia where he gave a presentation to staff members, undergraduate and postgraduate students, and music teachers at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Sydney University). This sparked questions about the project, with questions and discussion afterwards. He also attended a meeting at Vision Australia, the major charity in this arena (the counterpart of RNIB in Australia) with the potential to influence policy; at the meeting there were staff members interested in music, and it included some of their blind and partially-sighted clients who were musicians too. Some of these attended the presentation at the Conservatorium as well. There was considerable interest in reading the publications arising from this project, its conference outcomes, and in participation either in an advisory capacity or as respondent, in future research work. This was important networking as we intend to forward a bid to AHRC for further funding (see Other Outputs and Knowledge/Future Steps).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
 
Description Visually-impaired musicians' lives (VIML) conference, London 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We held a two-day conference, 10-11 March 2015. It was held in the Jeffery Hall at the UCL Institute of Education, London, UK. Please refer to the conference programme at http://vimusicians.ioe.ac.uk/programme.html The event had approximately 200 attendees on both days, which included: blind and partially-sighted musicians and musical learners, developers and retailers of accessible technologies, academics and researchers, teachers from special and mainstream schools, and representatives of local, national and international charity organisations. The many blind and partially-sighted attendees felt it important to come to the conference at personal expense, despite some having the added complications of e.g. guide dogs and air travel. The countries represented just by the presentations and performances were Argentina, Australia, Canada, Estonia, Greece, the Slovak Republic, the UK and the USA, although delegates came from other parts of the world too. The welcome speech was by Lord Colin Low of Dalston, CBE, Royal National Institute of Blind People, UK and the keynote by Assistant Professor Chi Kim of Berklee College of Music, USA. The conference was featured in a film made about our keynote speaker. Many blind and partially-sighted delegates reported that the event was an enjoyable and important opportunity to strengthen global networks in their community, discuss issues in their lives, share and learn about new possibilities for accessible music-making. We have placed some comments from delegates on http://vimusicians.ioe.ac.uk/confer_train.html It was also a way: for researchers developing access tech to meet with potential end-users to better understand their needs; for stakeholder charities to garner information that might feed into policy; and for teachers to share and enhance practice. Since this conference, we have been contacted frequently by people wanting to know when the next event will take place. We have recently forwarded a bid for AHRC follow-on funding (see Other Outputs and Knowledge/Future Steps) and, if successful, this will include a further conference event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2015
URL http://vimusicians.ioe.ac.uk/confer_train.html