Music and the Deaf's Frequalise Project

Frequalise, a ground breaking project kindly funded by Youth Music, was designed to enable deaf and hard of hearing young people explore the potential that technology offers in creating, performing and sharing music. We have collated our findings into a report which you can download for free here, and we hope to put this expertise and experience gained through the project into practice around the country. 

What is Frequalise?

Technology has had a profound impact on how music is produced and how young people engage with music. There is, however, a stark lack of understanding and expertise among educators as to how deaf people can engage with music technology, and the opportunities and challenges that this technology presents to those who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Frequalise is the first in-depth project of its kind to explore how mainstream music-making technology can be used to the greatest effect, both in schools and homes, around the country and further afield. Music and the Deaf joined with the University of Huddersfield to work with young people from across West Yorkshire to rigorously test a range of the latest music making apps and other software. The participants have explored how effective these technologies are in allowing them to compose and perform their music, and access and develop their own musical voice.

We hope that the findings of the project will encourage a wider cultural change in attitude within and towards the deaf community, whilst improving the skills of the music education workforce in using technology to engage deaf and hard of hearing young people.

 

Who was involved? 

Five music leaders were recruited to work alongside CEO of Music and the Deaf Danny Lane to form a team to deliver the project. These included both deaf and hearing young music leaders, with a range of skills and experience: specialist knowledge of music technology, experience of working with deaf young people, experience of teaching music, and use of sign language as a first language. 

The project worked with 63 deaf and hard of hearing young people from the ages of 9 to 25, in 26 2-hour sessions in both youth groups and schools, covering the geographical areas of Bradford, Kirklees, Oldham and Calderdale.

 

Outcomes 

The project set three main outcomes:

• To increase participants' skills and confidence to make music using digital technology.
• To increase participants' composition and performance skills, and give them the confidence to share their music and new attitudes towards music-making with peers.
• To provide direct experience to a team of professional and trainee music leaders of how best to engage deaf young people in music technology, sharing their learning with the wider workforce via a report and film.

Project activity was structured into 3 phases:

1. Exploration: including weekly sessions in youth groups and full day workshops in schools leading to the uploading of compositions online and a mid-project evaluation session with the young people reflecting on their experiences.
2. Development: Composing, Sharing and Performing – continuation of weekly sessions and full day workshops leading to another session of uploading compositions online. 
3. Evaluation and Dissemination – evaluation session with a focus group of young experts and music leaders and university trainees.

 

Findings

Through Frequalise, we have found that using music technology enables positive opportunities for deaf and hard of hearing children and young people who may otherwise not have access to music making to learn, explore, develop and gain confidence as young musicians and future music leaders.

The Frequalise evaluation has highlighted a number of key findings which contribute to models of best music practice for this population of children and young people. Music and the Deaf believe that as well as assisting in overcoming the social challenges faced by deaf young people, music technology can offer alternatives and potentially more to deaf children in terms of music making and personal development compared to other ways of making music, and that the findings should be taken into account by any organisation wishing to set up high quality, accessible music making activities for deaf and hard of hearing children and young people.

Using music technology has offered deaf young people taking part in Frequalise the opportunity to explore music making and composition in an accessible and inclusive way. It has offered an alternative to the route of acoustic instrumental music learning, which for some might be less accessible due to a lack of exposure to music making in earlier stages of learning, financial restrictions, or availability of instrumental teachers with the appropriate skills and experience needed in order to teach a child or young person with a hearing loss. That said, the team were able to explore just how effective specific technologies were for this population and are now in a position to feedback to the makers of music technologies used in order to improve their effectiveness for deaf children and young people.

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Recommendations

As a result of the Frequalise findings, we are able to make a number of recommendations aimed at improving musical experiences for deaf young people in the future:

• Further training for educational support staff, in using music technology with deaf young people
• Further training and awareness-raising for non-educational support staff in using music and music technology
• Establish further connection between music agencies across the region in order to share existing knowledge and expertise and, as a result, improve access to and quality of music making opportunities for deaf children and young people
• Enable new dialogue between Music and the Deaf and music technology providers to take place in order to achieve further, improved accessibility and quality of experience for young deaf and hard of hearing young people 
• Use Frequalise findings as a starting point for exploring further potential for research into the benefits of using music technology with deaf young people 
• Sharing of Frequalise findings not only nationally but internationally through existing networks
• Further structuring and development of a music leader pathway in order to maximise the identification and development of potential for young deaf, hearing and hard of hearing music leaders throughout the project structure and in consultation with partner organisations.

For more in-depth information, including perspectives from music teachers, community organisation leaders and Frequalise leaders, in addition to a full range of evaluative findings regarding accessibility, practicality and other issues, please see our full Frequalise report that you can download for free here or on the Music and the Deaf website.