MAMI Tech Toolkit Utilising Action Research to Develop a Technological Toolkit to Facilitate Access to Music-Making

Music is essential to most of us, it can light up all areas of the brain, help develop skills with communication, help to establish identity, and allow a unique path for expression. However, barriers to access or gaps in provision can restrict access to music-making and sound exploration for some people. Research has shown that technology can provide unique tools to access music-making but that technology is underused by practitioners. This action research project details the development and design of a technological toolkit called MAMI – the Modular Accessible Musical Instrument technology toolkit - in conjunction with stakeholders from four research sites. Stakeholders included music therapists, teachers, community musicians, and children and young people. The overarching aims of the research were: to explore how technology was incorporated into practices of music creation and sound exploration; to explore the issues that stakeholders had with current music technology; to create novel musical tools and tools that match criteria as specified by stakeholders, and address issues as found in a literature review; to assess the effectiveness of these novel tools with a view to improving practices; and to navigate propagation of the practices, technologies, and methods used to allow for transferability into the wider ecology. Outcomes of the research include: a set of design considerations that contribute to knowledge around the design and practical use of technological tools for music-making in special educational needs settings; a series of methodological considerations to help future researchers and developers navigate the process of using action research to create new technological tools with stakeholders; and the MAMI Tech Toolkit – a suite of four bespoke hardware tools and accompanying software - as an embodiment of the themes that emerged from: the cycles of action research; the design considerations; and a philosophical understanding of music creation that foregrounds it as an situated activity within a social context

The use of principles and techniques derived from meditation for the design and creation of co-participatory musical systems

For this thesis, a detailed study was undertaken to determine whether techniques derived from traditional meditation systems can be applied to co-participatory music systems in order to enhance their accessibility, interactivity, and experiential impact, In order to adequately address this subject, a number of investigative steps have been taken. First, a workable list of definitions for what meditation actually is was made by comparing the practices and philosophies of a number of traditional meditation forms. The conclusions derived from this stage of the discussion served to create a definitive blueprint for meditation and served as a theoretical foundation for the rest of the dissertation. The second stage was to see how these definitions manifest in the meditation form; of the modem world. This approach provided insight into how changed cultural perspectives exert a major influence on the effectiveness andlor appropriateness of certain traditional techniques. In addition to modern meditation practices, the definitions from chapter two were also examined from the perspective of modem science, another important aspect of modern culture. The observations from this chapter served as the basis for chapter four, in which the experiential, symbolic and conventional features of Western Art Music were examined. This was to provide some points of reference with which to consider the possibility of using meditation techniques to enhance the musical experience . In chapter five, an examination was made of a number of composers and artists and their relevant works who have devised methods by which some of the more restrictive aspects of West em Art Music can be overcome or bypassed, so as to gain access to the full potential of that musical experience . This stage of the discussion provided a practical framework with which to discuss the background, design and realization of my own wod. ~ connected to this research, collectively called the Wheel of Life project. One of the main aims of this creative project has been to subvert many of the anachronistic conventions of Western Art Music, particularly conventions such as performer/audience separation and overly rigid or ambiguous musical structures. By doing this, it is hoped th3t musical systems can be created that allow the participant to engage in a much more personally meaningful and actively creative experience