Our Research and Development team have been working on an exciting project with musician Kris Halpin in recent months.
Over the past few years Kris has found playing guitar (his main instrument) and piano increasingly inaccessible, which was affecting his career as an artist. He approached Drake Music to look at ways we could work with him to help bridge this barrier and allow him to continue to work as a performing musician.
When the R&D team came across the Mi.Mu Gloves project this seemed like it could provide the answers Kris was looking for and could potentially be an amazing addition to the range of accessible instruments we already work with at Drake Music.
So, Gawain (Associate National R&D Manager) and Kris joined up with Imogen Heap and her team working on creating Mi.Mu Gloves to be a part of the next stage of development.
Now we are delighted to announce that you can read all about it in WIRED
The gloves offer some really exciting opportunities to open up access to music-making, but there is a lot of work ahead. Kris explains on his blog:
“As part of a bigger picture, with Drake Music I hope to answer many questions about their accessibility as a piece of music tech. DM and Gawain believed in the project enough to get involved as Collaborators; we must now be thorough and critical in our investigation. It’s early days; I can see clearly the potential for the Gloves to change the lives of disabled musicians, but the journey to that point is blurry, and it may be long. This scenario is so unique; my changing access needs have met with bleeding edge technology that could demolish our perceptions of disabling barriers to music.
The uniqueness comes in part to the flexibility of the platform; this is an instrument that can (literally) fit around the obstacles that a disability presents. No traditional instrument has ever seriously offered this; I can’t change the piano to better fit my wonky hands. By contrast, no attempt at accessible music tech has been able to offer the same degree of freedom as the Gloves.”
We will keep you posted about further developments and news as the project progresses, but if you have any specific comments or questions please do get in touch.
You can keep up to date with our work on the Mi.Mu Gloves in the following ways:
Follow our Research and Development team on Twitter – @DrakeMusicRandD
Check back here on the DM Blog
Read more about Kris’ experiences with the gloves on his blog
