November has been a busy month of presentations, meetings and networking!
In the first week, we presented a poster summarising the main themes from our interview study at the British Academy of Audiology Annual Conference in Glasgow. To access the poster, click here.
We also took part in a webinar organised by Wendy Cheng, Founder of the Association of Adult Musicians with Hearing Loss. We heard talks by Marshall Chasin who described some of the limitations of hearing aid technology for listening to and performing music, and Brian Fligor who focused on ways in which musicians could optimise their experiences with their audiologists. Musicians Nancy Williams, Adam Schwalje and Charles Mokotoff presented personal stories, which led into a Q&A session for musicians to share their experiences and seek advice from the panel.
Last week, at the Hearing Steering Committee, it was wonderful to hear that the Musicians Hearing Health Scheme is off to a flying start! Well over 1,000 applications have been received since the scheme started on 1st August and all agreed that this was a fine example of applied research that will benefit musicians for years to come. If you are a professional musician who would like to have access to specialist hearing assessment and bespoke hearing protection, click here.
Yesterday, we had the pleasure of being part of Music and the Deaf’s FREQUALISE dissemination event. Frequalise is a project to enable deaf children and young people to explore the potential technology offers in creating, performing and sharing music. We heard talks by Danny Lane (MatD, CEO) Ros Rowe (Project Manager), Ros Hawley (Project Evaluator), and Liz Dobson (Senior Lecturer in Music Technology, University of Huddersfield); demonstrations from the workshop leaders and participants (Danny Chadwin, Mohsin Ahmed); and a live musical performance from project participant Adam Butler. The event highlighted some of the challenges of the project including delivering workshops to children and young people of different ages, and with differing levels of hearing loss, and consideration of accessible and affordable technologies (e.g. Etherpad, Garageband) that participants could continue to use at home. The day closed with a discussion about developing collaborations to secure further funding to support this important work, and the recognition that a network of people interested in improving access to music for deaf children and young people needs establishing.
Watch this space…
AG