About

Ethos

The ethos behind AMPs (the Accessible Music Projects) is straightforward. That is, to enable adults or children to engage in playing music. Either for fun, pleasure or for therapeutic reason. Irrespective of any disability. This could be at home, in school, a day opportunities centre or potentially in a hospital environment.

The musical instruments generated through various collaborations can be loaned out as required. These can be returned for reuse or recycling into a new instrument. I function as a S.T.E.M. ambassador. The only "charge" is feedback on the effectiveness instruments,

History

I spent a major part of my professional career in the computer and communications industry. In later years I switched into health and social care. This led me to observe that in many daycare centres there were often musical instruments gathering dust. As an amateur musician I pondered if something could be done about this. It had to be realised that keyboards, woodwind, percussion and stringed instrument require manual dexterity and mental abilities that could be a barrier for some.

The first breakthrough came when I mentioned these cupboards to a friend. They had simplified the chords of poplar songs so that their child (who had Down's Syndrome) could play a guitar. To quote "You can consider yourself to be a musician if you can strum a single "A" chord e.g. Row, Row, Row your boat". Everything after that is refinement. This concept was put to effective use in the local mental health services where I worked at the time.

The second breakthrough came about at the time of 2012 Paralympics. I observed people running faster than I could with the help of various prosthesis. This brought on the light bulb moment that what was needed was a "Musical Prosthesis". to assist people to engage in music irrespective of their impairment. But what form would this take?

The third breakthrough came whilst volunteering at the National Museum of Computing (located within Bletchley Park). Another volunteer suggested I could embed the "Rules of Music" i.e. how to play a chord, make the sound of a flute or drum etc. into the memory of a microcontroller. These are the type of device that control your car engine or run the dish washer. Essentially you switch them on, and they are off and running. Thus, I built a "test bed" using a microcontroller called an Arduino. This allowed the control of a standard keyboard using external switches. Now you could play an "A" chord with your elbow or foot. The musical prosthesis was now a reality.

The fourth and final breakthrough came about with the advent of the Musical Instrument Sheild. This is a circuit board that piggy backs onto an Arduino. It has a complete MIDI synthesiser built into the circuit board. This allows you to dispense with the external electronic keyboard.

Currently

A key factor in the creation of accessible musical instruments that they both durable and reliable. i.e. they work outside of the workshop. After the various breakthroughs several bespoke machines were made tailored to individuals. Examples of these were the "Sound Blanket", a "Tooth Drum", a reconfigurable electric white board, "Top Box" and "Tone Wire".

In parallel with these bespoke instruments a range of more universal base stations were created. This is where a base stations have a wide range of actuators plugged in to suite individual or group sessions.

Next Steps

Thanks to collaboration with the Electrc Umberalla and NMPAT it looks possible to create univeral "base stations" that could be built by (say) a sixth form college as a project that could in turn support local special needs school. To this end, the construction process and code examples can be found on the more recent projects.

Additionally, the "Leonardo" variant of the Arduino has the potential for the simpler Musical Prosthesis" to link more readily into a computer or tablet. This would make it easier to do data logging in a clinical environment. There is also the potential to connect with existing off the shelf music software such as Garage Band.