For Dr. Alper Kaya, the darkest days of his life occurred about 10 years after he came upon he had ALS.
Primarily based in Turkey, the ophthalmologist felt lucky in that the illness progressed slowly, after the preliminary analysis of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis in 1990. He might nonetheless carry out surgical procedures, assist sufferers and play classical guitar – one of many constants in his life, ever since he was an adolescent.
After a few decade, he misplaced using his palms to do these issues he beloved. He misplaced hope, too. On the time, it felt insufferable.
However with the assistance of his daughter, he discovered different methods to make music once more. Assistive expertise gave him the flexibility to blow right into a MIDI wind controller (“a hands-free digital, breath-powered instrument”). Later, when he couldn’t shut his mouth, he discovered different music-based software program to reply to eye monitoring and small head actions. He’s obtained a YouTube channel the place he’s uploaded a few of his compositions.
Most lately, he was an early tester for DuoRhythmo, a Home windows app that lately launched its first main replace. It permits anybody, together with folks dwelling with disabilities, to create music collaboratively and remotely in real-time. With it, he can create unique rhythms and beats utilizing his eyes.
“Speaking by music is essential for me,” says Kaya, 61. He performed in bands all through his youthful days. Throughout highschool, college and medical faculty, he by no means left music. “Music represents the colour of my spirit and once I make music, it develops my non secular life. I be at liberty and extra artistic. If you wish to make music, you want an instrument and also you bond with it. It’s a particular relationship.”
Whereas he can not play devices the way in which he used to, expertise has given him one other approach to be artistic and connect with music.
He instantly appreciated the DuoRhythmo interface and with the ability to play hand drums (along with his eyes), one thing he hadn’t finished earlier than, and located it very simple for a newbie like him to include the irregular rhythms he grew up with in Turkish music.
What Kaya can do with the app is the fruits of years of analysis by college students at Aalborg College Copenhagen who’re finding out Medialogy, a significant that explores how folks work together with computer systems. That subject consists of expertise similar to desktop apps like DuoRhythmo, in addition to digital and augmented actuality.
“We actually like this idea of utmost constraint design, when you’ve got a really particular goal group who’ve restricted methods of interacting with the product. After which as a substitute of constructing a product after which making it accessible afterwards, we construct it from the underside up to ensure interplay comes first after which all the pieces else comes after,” says Truls Bendik Tjemsland, one of many core group members who created the app — college students who’re within the grasp’s leg of the Medialogy program, scheduled to graduate in summer time 2023.
As they had been in search of initiatives to work on, music emerged as the main focus due to its artistic and collaborative nature, a method to attach folks and convey them collectively. A collaboration between Multisensory Expertise Lab at Aalborg College Copenhagen and Microsoft Analysis, they practiced user-centered analysis alongside folks with ALS (PALS) and their households.
They pitched the concept of an app based mostly on an accessible drum sample, akin to a drum circle.
“By means of music you may get to this true pure pleasure of co-creation and collaboration with folks dwelling with ALS,” says Balázs András Iványi, who’s finding out within the Bay Space with Tjemsland for a semester earlier than returning to Denmark. “I believe this form of collaborative side is like whenever you’re making meals collectively, that pleasure of doing one thing collectively. These folks had been capable of truly play one thing collectively and make one thing significant.”
