It’s Everybody’s Music

September 2008

Elizabeth Goolian

Jason Corey, faculty member in Performing Arts Technology, is participating in a project with the College of Engineering and a local organization called D-PAN, Deaf Performing Artists Network, in an effort to create technologies that assist hearing-impaired people to experience music by means other than sound. A student competition to produce such technological ideas, underwritten by the U-M Center for Entrepreneurship, has been announced on www.feelthemusiccompetition.com. A total of $10,000 will go to the student or team of students who develop the best prototypes for portable, wireless devices that would enable deaf or hearing-impaired people to experience live music through the feel of sound waves. The top team will win $5,000; five runner-up teams will win $1,000 each. The contest officially opened on September 19. “The idea is for the participants to design something that works wirelessly,” says Corey, “so that it can be worn to any concert, as a belt or as part of some article of clothing.” Joel Martin, music publisher for rapper Eminem who is also involved with the project, commented, “It should not segregate a person who is deaf from the rest of the audience. It should be something a hearing person could also wear to enhance the musical experience.