Do It With Others (DIWO) Virtual Rehearsal Studio is a project that is delivered by our project partners Furtherfield.
Non-disabled musicians have a broad choice of venues to collaborate, rehearse and share music making.
Accessible rehearsal spaces can be difficult to find and expensive, creating additional barriers to collaborative working for disabled musicians.
DIWO is exploring whether an online rehearsal space could offer a useful function to facilitate music making and build community.
The project plan is to jointly host four creative experiments looking at how internet tools can replicate the experience of working with other artists in the same creative space.
DIWO has just finished a research phase, during which numerous free and/or open source software solutions have been examined and tested for suitability, both for artistic collaboration and also for the creation of a methodology on how to approach this independently, as a resource to disabled musicians and the wider artistic community.
We have settled on sofa sessions as a platform and are now moving into the artistic collaboration phase, in which music will be created and the format rigorously tested.
We expect to be finished by January 2016 and aim to publish materials in March 2016.
The Artists
We are working with four artists on this programme:
John Kelly is a disabled musician, writer, actor and active campaigner for disability rights. He currently is working with Drake Music on Research & Development, and co-leads our monthly Hack Events in London.
Roger Mills is a classically trained musician, academic, media sound artist, and self-taught improviser who has worked as a composer and sound designer for both stage and screen. His work explores networked music performance, improvisation, sound and music design and experimental radio.
Max Runham is a one armed singer-songwriter from Kent. With a strong passion for songwriting developing over the past couple of years, Max combines a unique guitar sound with vocals.
Gary Day is Drake Music’s Associate Musician and Trainer. Gary has been working in the field of accessible and inclusive music making and education since 2001. He joined the Drake Music team in London as an Associate Musician and Trainer in January 2008 and is a ‘Sounds of Intent’ enthusiast.