A Carleton University student’s PhD dissertation may just make a transformative change for blind and low vision musicians. Leon Lu’s device, the Tap-Tap, allows them to replace the non-verbal cues they can’t follow with vibrations they can.
So far, the device has been tested with students and teachers in a real world setting with positive results.
The Issues
There are several barriers to music learning and performance for blind and low vision musicians.
- Most of the cues, such as the conductor’s baton, and reading music scores, are visual;
- In ensembles, musicians connect to the music and each other through movement as well as sound;
- Interpreting such non-verbal cues becomes difficult.
In short, studying and performing music as a whole become challenging, and full participation is often not possible.
Leon Lu and the Tap-Tap Project
Leon Lu is an Information Technology PhD student at Carleton University, whose work centres around accessibility, learning, and with a particular focus on creativity.
“We often think about accessibility in terms of basic human needs like getting from point A to point B or accessing information. But what about having access to the things that make life more enjoyable and meaningful?’” says Lu in a Carleton University news story.
“Music and creativity, some may argue, are not necessarily things that everyone needs to have access to. But in my mind, they are extremely important aspects of the human experience.”
As part of researching his PhD dissertation, he’d hear from low vision and blind musicians, and learned about non-verbal cues and their role in music. The tap-tap device comes from those conversations. One musician told him that they’d sometimes ask a follow musician to tap on their shoulder as a cue to start playing.
- The device uses wearable haptic technology, which sends signals as vibrations;
- It is worn around the ankle by music students and their teachers;
- When they tap their heels together, it sends a vibration signal to the other, allowing for communication.
The two people who wear the paired tap-tap devices can then develop their own code to communicate different ideas via vibrations. It can work in a way that’s similar to Morse code.
Below, a student and teacher from the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg Music School test out the Tap-Tap device. The Tap-Tap, designed by Carleton PhD candidate Leon Lu, makes music learning more accessible for blind musicians.
Video by Cindy Yifan Hu
The Device
Leon had help with the project, including Canadians Aino Eze-Anyanwu, an undergraduate student in industrial design, and Rodolfo Cossovich, an information technology PhD candidate. Chase Crispin, a blind musician and teacher in Lincoln, Nebraska, acted as a consultant.
The device has several advantages, even aside from the simple fact that it works.
- It features a simple construction that involves a small circuit board, sensors, and a radio component, along with a small motor that generates the vibrations.
- Other than that, it consists of straps and Velcro.
- It’s a very low cost solution, in other words.
Students and teachers from the Filomen M. D’Agostino Greenberg (FMDG) Music School in New York City, a specialized music school for blind and low vision students, tested the prototype of the device for an eight week period. The devices were used with violins and pianos, as well as in vocal study.
The results were positive, with most students and teachers reporting that the device proved helpful. In particular, it resulted in practical outcomes, such as reducing the number of times a teacher stopped the lesson to explain something — elements which were now being conveyed via vibrational signal.
Next Steps
Leon Lu is back in his home base of Toronto, where he’s been analyzing the data from the FMDG Music School to finish his thesis.
Once he’s graduated, Lu would like to make the tap-tap an open source design so that it can reach as many people as possible. His hope is that blind and low vision music students and teachers will find it useful.
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