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Many creative ideas begin in places where we least expect them. Musical Vibrations came about during a car journey.

Professor Carl Hopkins, head of the Acoustics Research Unit (ARU) at the University of Liverpool, first dreamt up the idea that would result in the Musical Vibrations project when a radio broadcast in his car connected his research into floor vibration with the phenomenon of music being perceived as vibrations through the floor of a concert hall as described by Dame Evelyn Glennie.

His initial thoughts were of designing performance decks around each instrument to maximise vibrational feedback and remove potential variations between different concert performance spaces.

So, research began in 2012, in conjunction with the Royal Northern College of Music, to explore how vibrotactile technology could support musicians with a hearing impairment. The intention was to open up new opportunities for people to become musicians and perform with other musicians. Publications on this research can be found here. This research was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (Grant No. AH/H008926/1)

https://stream.liv.ac.uk/kgfymdz4The video above summarises the concept outlined in the research, which was that it was possible for musicians to perform together successfully using vibrotactile feedback alone, i.e. without being able to see or hear each other. The video promoted the research findings to a much wider audience and had more than 1000 views in its first week online. To date, it has been viewed over 6,000 times.

We’re proud to possess some of the worst loudspeakers in existence at the University of Liverpool. Originally designed to make walls and aircraft parts shake during testing, they are incredibly inefficient. So much so that you can hardly hear them at all. They’re so bad we call them ‘shakers’. 

But when you touch them it’s a different story; if you connected one to an electronic piano you would be able to feel the difference between musical pitches all the way from C1, the very bottom of a piano, up to G5, which is around where an average female voice tops out.

It’s a more efficient way of doing what deaf people have been doing since the invention of amplified sound; touching surfaces in rooms where loud music is being played to ‘hear’ music through the skin.

The shakers can be used on the hands, heels and forefeet so that up to six, each connected to a different musical instrument if desired, can be used at once.

Deaf musicians can feel the vibrations from the playing of other musicians through their feet whilst keeping hands free for playing along with the ensemble without relying on visual cues. Our Day Tripper video illustrates the concept.

The aim of the Musical Vibrations project is to bring the shakers into schools, music venues and recording studios where they can create a real-life impact. We took the shakers to the Royal School for the Deaf, Derby earlier this year, and worked with around 40 children from key stages 1 to 4.

The next phase of our research, to find out exactly what the shakers bring to music education, starts in 2019. This involves teachers and pupils using the shakers in music lessons over a period of four weeks.

We’re currently looking for more music schools and resource bases to take part.

How can Limping Chicken readers help?

• If your child attends a school for Deaf children or a resource base at a mainstream secondary, please mention this project to the school. More information can be found on our website www.musicalvibrations.com
• If you’re a music teacher, TOD, or Head teacher, drop us a line at MUSVIB@liverpool.ac.uk
• Follow us on Twitter @MUSVIB  to help us get the message out!

If results are positive, and the positive response we have had so far is very encouraging, then our plan is to seek charitable funding to enable systems to be purchased for all schools and deaf resource bases.

In May 2013, we ran a dissemination conference with the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). The conference was attended by D/deaf musicians and other people who felt excluded from participating in music because of their deafness. We presented findings from a three year research project into the use of vibrotactile feedback to aid interactive performance for musicians with a hearing impairment.

One lady in her sixties, speaking through a lipreading interpreter, told conference delegates of her experience of school music lessons. The lady explained how she was given a triangle and asked to stand up until the teacher pointed at her. She then hit the triangle and sat down; her ‘performance’ finished. She explained that she felt alienated and humiliated by this treatment and vowed not to engage with music again.

We had brought some vibrotactile equipment from the Acoustics Research Unit for the conference and I was desperate to get the lady to try it out, but when I approached her during the morning break she explained to me that as she was profoundly deaf there was no point in her trying the system out. At lunch time I asked her again but got the same response.

By the afternoon break she could see me coming and, I think, out of pity for me she agreed to try out the system. She sat down and placed her foot on the shaker unit that we had connected to a bass guitar and I played a few notes. She immediately removed her foot and looked at me in astonishment. She then returned her foot to the shaker and said “play more”. After a few minutes she looked at me and said “so that’s a guitar!”

We also had a shaker unit connected to an electric piano and she asked if she could try playing on it. As she played the notes on the keyboard she remarked “I can tell the difference between the black and the white notes.”

The aim of academic research is always to create impact outside of the laboratory.  Prediction models and experimental measurement rigs are fascinating, but to see the look on that lady’s face was just priceless.

Dr Gary Seiffert, Acoustics Research Unit, University of Liverpool

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