Thursday, January 23 4:30 PM- 5:15 PM 45 minutes (America/Los_Angeles)

The Music Accessibility Special Interest Group

Name: The Music Accessibility Special Interest Group
Start: 2025-01-23T16:30:00-08:00
End: 2025-01-23T17:15:00-08:00
Location: Anaheim Convention Center | Front of Hall A | The MIDI Association Booth 10302

The MASSIG group, including MIDI Association members like Amnote, Arcana Instruments, Audio Modeling, BetterMaker, Roland, and many more along with Jay Pocknell from The Royal Institute for The Blind and accessibility-focused music technologists like Sam Prouse, has been working for over a year to develop MIDI technologies that improve accessibility

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The Special Interest Group on Music Accessibility allows artists, researchers, and others in the music production community to interact directly with MIDI Association companies and provides a forum for discussions surrounding music accessibility and MIDI.

We will review the “Inclusive Design within Audio Products: What, Why, How?” workshop from this year’s Audio Developer Conference. Curated by Jay Pocknell, Music Support Officer at RNIB and founder of Sound Without Sight, this covered the principles of music accessibility and shared examples of accessible products already on the market.

Haim Kairy of Arcana Instruments will moderate the panel and talk about his journey in developing the Arcana Strum after being inspired by a young girl with accessibility challenges and how it led him to his work with Bettermaker.

Lele Parravinci and Simone Capitani from Audio Modeling will discuss the UniMIDIhub, the 2024 MIDI Innovation Award winner in the non-commercial software category and their vision for the future of music accessibility.

Jason Barnes and Matt Bankston talk about their work to enable musicians with disabilities to continue to create and perform music via their nonprofit Cybernetic Sound.

Jason Barnes’ journey is one of resilience and inspiration. After losing his right hand and forearm in an accident in 2012, he turned his adversity into an opportunity. With a passion for music that remained undiminished, Jason worked on developing prosthetic devices that enabled him to continue playing drums.

Matt Bankston, a multi-instrument musician and producer, whose journey is marked by overcoming the challenges of severe hemophilia, reflects a deep understanding of the struggles faced by musicians with disabilities.

The Bettermaker, a trailblazer in professional audio technology, proudly announces a groundbreaking accessibility feature designed to empower blind and physically impaired music producers. This innovation enables seamless control of Bettermaker hardware and plugins through voice commands, built with cutting edge open source AI software , complemented by real-time voice feedback for precise parameter adjustments.

The MIDI Association believes that music should be accessible to everyone.