[MusicTlk] Fwd: [tek-talk] Fw: Hi-tech batons allow blind musicians to follow ... - The Telegraph

[Ella Yu]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Jeanne Fike" <jfike636 at charter.net>
> Date: March 27, 2019 at 2:23:28 PM PDT
> To: <tek-talk-discussion at groups.io>
> Subject: [tek-talk] Fw: Hi-tech batons allow blind musicians to follow ... - The Telegraph
> Reply-To: tek-talk-discussion at groups.io
> 
> Some may find the following article (below link) interesting
>  
> Hi-tech batons allow blind musicians to follow ... - The Telegraph
> https://www.telegraph.co.uk
> › News
>  
> Hi-tech batons allow blind musicians to follow conductor for first time
> By Charles Hymas,
> home affairs editor
> 15 JANUARY 2019 • 8:08PM
>  
> Ahigh-tech baton that allows blind
> musicians to follow a conductor
> for the first time has been developed, paving the way for them to join professional mainstream orchestras.
>  
> The baton, loaded with microchips, transmits the precise movements of the conductor via wireless signals to electronic wearable devices on the blind or
> visually-impaired musicians’ wrists or ankles.
>  
> The devices’ sensors translate the signals into vibrations and buzzes which the musicians feel, enabling them to pick up not only the beat but also the
> movement of the conductor’s baton in the air.
>  
> “It emulates what a sighted musician sees,” said conductor Charles Hazlewood who successfully trialled the technology with a dozen blind and sighted musicians
> at a performance of
> Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony
> and a new work by a South Korean composer.
>  
> , founder of British Paraorchestra, which was set up for the disabled and played at the closing ceremony of London’s 2012 Paralympics with
>  
> Coldplay,
> said it captured the sensation of a conductor’s movement between the beats, guiding musicians to be loud or quiet, intense or soft.
>  
> "It’s a gamechanger and has the potential to level the playing field for blind and sighted musicians,” he said. "There's no reason why a conventional baton
> could not be modified with the computer chip in it.
>  
> “There's no reason why any number of musicians in a symphony orchestra could not be visually impaired. That’s first time in history that could happen.”
>  
> The “haptic baton” was created by designer Vahakn Matossian based on a prototype by his father Rolf Gehlhaar, a composer and emeritus professor at Coventry
> University.
>  
> “This is a world first. No conductor has ever wirelessly transmitted simultaneously to both multiple visually impaired and sighted orchestral musicians
> with the same baton,” said Mr Matossian.
>  
> Pianist Rachel Starritt, the  first blind student to study a music degree at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, said it could be revolutionary
> for
> blind musicians.
>  
> “It gives you more of a sense of what the conductor is thinking through the vibrations, so you know when the conductor is making a long pause when to come
> in,” she said.
>  
> Jonathan Harper, the paraorchestra’s chief executive, said it was liked augmented reality and it removed a barrier that has prevented talented visually-impaired
> musicians from joining the country's leading orchestras.
> article end                                          
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