Digital musical instruments and interfaces can be designed to enable people with disabilities to participate in creative music-making. Advances in personalized, open source technologies and low-cost DIY components have made customized musical tools easily accessible for use in inclusive music-making. In this article, the author discusses his research with the Drake Music Project Northern Ireland on making music-making more inclusive.

Across the UK, a growing number of charity organisations, social enterprises, academic researchers and individuals have developed music technology-based music workshops and projects utilising Accessible Music Technology to address the issue of access to music-making for people with disabilities. In this article, I discuss my ethnographic study of The Drake Music Project Northern Ireland (DMNI), a charity which provides music workshop opportunities in inclusive ensembles at the community level. My methodology of participant observation involved undergoing the training necessary to become an access music tutor for DMNI, attending workshops and conducting interviews with people throughout the organisation. Key findings were that consumer music technology devices that were not designed to be accessible to a wide spectrum of users could be made accessible through adapting them with other devices or different sensor interfaces more suitable for people with unique abilities and specific needs. Throughout my study I found that it was not in the design of music technology devices that made them accessible. Rather, meaningful music-making emerged through the interrelations between the access music tutors, workshop participants and the music technology interfaces in the workshop environment. The broader implications of DMNI music-making activities and effects on social inclusion are also discussed.

Performance without Barriers research group, and currently Programme Manager at Drake Music NI. Koichi is a music researcher and electronic musician. He completed his PhD research on inclusive music in a collaborative study with Drake Music NI and Sonic Arts Research Centre, Queen's University Belfast. His current research and work focus now is in music and social inclusion, creative economy and music technology. Franziska Schroeder is the founder of the 'Performance without Barriers' research group, based at the Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast. Funding for ongoing work has been received by the UK's Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), allowing the group to benefit from PhD and post-doctoral researchers and to expand work into emerging technological fields.Franziska is a saxophonist, improviser and senior lecturer at Queen's University Belfast where she teaches digital performance, improvisation, and critical theories. Performance without Barriers: improvisation and accessible digital musical instruments in inclusive music makingThe 'Performance without Barriers' 1 research group (PwB), based at the Sonic Arts Research Centre at Queen's University Belfast has been exploring the potential of sonic arts practices and music improvisation for enhancing social inclusion. To date the group has primarily focussed on research activities related to the inclusive potential of providing access to music improvisation for people with physical disabilities via the use of digital technologies. In this paper we discuss the critical thinking behind our work which draws together the social and connective functions of music making, the open and relational practice of music improvisation and technological solutions utilising open, adaptable and accessible digital technologies. Three case studies of our work are discussed and the voices and experiences of participants in these projects are introduced.In this article we argue that activities in music improvisation have inclusive potential for opening constructive dialogues between performers, their instruments and people of different backgrounds and abilities. Furthermore, as we have approached our research activities reflexively, we reflect on the contradictions, dilemmas and points of learning we have discovered when engaging in collaborative and public engagement work between researchers working in a university context and the wider society.

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This text critically reflects on the higher education public engagement training program, entitled 'Big Earssonic art for public ears'. The authors detail the objectives and aims as well as the benefits of this initiative for the enhancement of the student learning experience. We consider Schmidt's (Schmidt, 2012) notion of mis-listening and Christopher Small's concept of 'musicking' (Small, 1998), and develop a critical argument on how public engagement has changed researchers' views and attitudes about their own research. The text explores how the creative interaction with a young audience has had great impact on the students' learning experience as well as on their employability/transferable skills, because Big Ears stresses the importance of pulling practice as research away from the academic argument of why artists should be supported inside an institution, and into the realm of the realwhat to do when making art, how to make it relevant and applicable to audiences.