Adaptive Engineering
for Musical Instruments
James P. Snedeker, M.M.
Abstract—Musicians who become disabled may not necessarily
need to discontinue music making. This article provides 12 examples of musicians for whom musical instruments were modified to
accommodate specific disabilities. Ingenuity, imagination, and flexibility can help individuals with disabilities overcome obstacles to
continue music making. Med Probl Perform Art 2005;20:89–98.
I
f you always wanted to be a hero when you grew up, an
ideal line of work might be as a copy-machine repair technician. Most of us know how critical that piece of machinery
is to our day-to-day office functioning, and there is no shortage of crisis when it breaks down. The call is made, waiting
ensues; finally the repairperson shows up, the machine is
fixed, and all is right again with the world.
Similar dramas often go on in the world of musical instruments. For a performer, it’s a sinking feeling to start a warmup on your instrument before a performance, only to find
that a key is bent or a valve is stuck.
But even worse, what happens to people when their ability to perform at all is taken away, not because of a horn problem but because of an accident, malady, or sickness?
Fortunately, those who repair musical instruments for a
living relish a challenge. Often as musicians themselves, they
know how important it is to play and express oneself through
music, and through ingenuity in altering the instrument they
can return an afflicted musician to playing despite seemingly
insurmountable odds. Sometimes, just ordinary folks with an
idea, hunch, or simply good will and a knack for tinkering
can also turn a fallen musician’s situation around. This article reviews 12 such case histories and shows that ingenuity
and perseverance can transform a seemingly dreary situation
into a positive one.
the saxophone again, which requires two hands. While working with an occupational therapist, the patient realized that
if it were possible to sufficiently modify a saxophone, he
might be able to play it with one hand.
Enter Jeff Stelling, a local instrument designer and repairman. After extensive consultation, Stelling developed a prototype of a “one-handed saxophone” (Figure 1), which
enables the player to play all the notes with the right hand
only. The instrument, though complicated, truly delivers the
potential for playing just as well as a normal saxophone.
Indeed, his client performed in a recital with his students in
November 2003 (personal communication with player,
November 2, 2004).
From the beginning, Stelling wanted to build a fully functioning, professional instrument capable of doing everything
a normal saxophone could do. Years before, a one-handed
saxophone had been built in Connecticut, but it did not have
all of the chromatic pitches and was limited in range. All the
alternate fingers (such as Bb’s, side F# and C, and so on) also
had to be available. The 23 keys normally played by nine fingers now had to be played by only five.
ONE-HANDED SAXOPHONE
In February 2000, a 37-year-old woodwind player and
music professor at the University of Nebraska Kearney who
specialized in saxophone had a massive stroke that resulted in
left-side paralysis. As he recovered, part of putting his life
back together included figuring out how he was going to play
Mr. Snedeker currently works as an instrumental music teacher for the
Shutesbury Elementary School in Shutesbury, Massachusetts, and teaches
instrumental music privately at the Red Barn Music Studio in Amherst,
Massachusetts. He is also a copy editor for the Northfield Mount Hermon
School in Northfield, Massachusetts.
Address correspondence to: James P. Snedeker, M.M., 248 Amherst Road,
#E8, Sunderland, MA 01375. E-mail: [email protected].
FIGURE 1. The one-handed saxophone.
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FIGURE 2. Sample fingering chart
for one-handed saxophone.
Stelling and his client considered the fingering system of
the saxophone, the basic idea of which is that each finger has
a key assigned to it (although sometimes more than one; for
example, the left-hand pinky operates four different keys). In
contrast, the piano keyboard has 88 keys that can be played
by any finger. They then hit on the idea of having one key
designed to combine the functions of the left with the right
index finger (the good one) and similarly have another key
each for the middle and ring fingers, which would combine
the duties of these fingers from both hands (Figure 2).
After more than 2 years of work, Stelling produced a professional-quality instrument that can play every note a
FIGURE 3. The pedal trumpet.
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Medical Problems of Performing Artists
normal saxophone can. In July 2003, he and his client presented the instrument to the World Saxophone Congess in
Minneapolis.1 Soon after, the father of a teenage saxophonist
from South Carolina who had heard about this project was
in touch with Stelling; his son had lost his left arm in an airplane crash. Stelling and his client decided to donate the
original prototype to the young man, who today is playing as
well as ever despite having only one arm.2
THE PEDAL TRUMPET
In February 1993, a 57-year-old trumpet player and music
professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst experienced the disintegration of his C5-6 spinal disc with resulting
paralysis below that level. The doctors warned him that he
would never walk again, much less conduct or play trumpet.
But after 3 months of physical therapy, he was able to play a
fanfare on a post-horn (a type of straight trumpet with no
valves) for the school’s spring graduation. After several years
of continued therapy, he regained enough movement in his
arms to conduct again but still only had one intact finger on
his trumpet-playing (right) hand. He still taught trumpet lessons, albeit haltingly, using his index finger to manipulate all
three valves.
In 1998, Andrew Forster, a graduate student in music at
the same university, devised a solution, the “pedal trumpet,”
in which two of the trumpet valves are operated by the
player’s feet via cables connected to pedals. He wrote to the
Yamaha Corporation and asked them to donate the equipment, which consisted of two pedals used by drum-set players
to operate the high-hat cymbals. Yamaha was happy to oblige
and sent the pedals (personal communication with Andrew
Forster, January 21, 2005).
Forster then approached Richard Hansen, a brass repairman from Palmer, Massachusetts, and shared his idea: attach
one end of a cable to the valve and the other to a bass-drum
FIGURE 5. Air-powered trumpet being played.
FIGURE 4. The air-powered trumpet.
foot pedal. The trumpet valve would be pulled down by
depressing the pedal, while lifting the pedal would allow the
valve to pop back up. The first and third valves of this device
would be operated by the left and right feet, respectively. The
middle valve could be operated by the disabled player’s index
finger, which retained sufficient strength to be used normally.
Hansen took on the challenge and soon presented the
musician with the world’s first pedal trumpet (Figure 3). After
learning the system of fingering/pedaling needed to operate
the device, the disabled player was soon playing duets with his
students, something he had been unable to do for 5 years.
AN AIR-POWERED TRUMPET
Sometimes the best solutions to problems arise through a
series of unrelated circumstances. It was a trip for some fast
food I took in 1997 that eventually inspired me to design a
second modified trumpet for the same player, one that could
be operated by his fingers in normal trumpet-playing position, despite the fact that he still had virtually no range of
movement in those fingers. I was a graduate student in music
education and applied saxophone at the time. One day, after
noting the touch screen on a cash register, I thought, if touching a surface can make a cash register work, why couldn’t
touching another surface make a trumpet valve go down?3
I enlisted the help of two engineers on campus, Mike
Conboy and Asaph Murfin, both of whom had an interest in
adaptive engineering and who took on the project with gusto.
After 2 1/2 years of working on their own time, their own
expense and with my musical guidance, we designed a trumpet with valves that were powered by compressed nitrogen. A
metal shelf sitting just above the valve pearls holds three
touch pads, corresponding to each valve. When holding the
trumpet in normal fashion, the player’s fingers are situated
just above the pads. To activate the system, all that is needed
is to touch any of the pads. When a finger comes in contact
with the pad, it sends an electrical signal to a processor,
which in turn activates a compressor attached to a tank of
nitrogen, sending a burst of nitrogen through a flexible plastic tube connected to the bottom of the valve. An actuator
connected to the inside of the valve pulls the valve down
from inside. The valve stays down so long as the circuit is
complete; once the finger is released, the air pressure is
reduced and the valve pops back up (Figures 4 and 5).
One minor alteration to the normal trumpet posture
needed to be made. Due to the complete immobility of the
player’s ring finger, which is used to operate the third valve, we
transferred the third-valve duties to his thumb. Outside of this,
the normal trumpet player’s finger technique remained intact.
When he first played the final product, tears rolled down
the player’s cheeks and he said, “It’s a miracle.” He debuted
the new trumpet in public in August 2000, performing the
theme and variation of Carnival of Venice.
A SOLENOID-POWERED TRUMPET
Incredibly, soon after completion of the air-powered trumpet, a similar trumpet was designed in another country and
for a much younger player with a different story. In early
2001, Russ Brown, a teacher in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan,
Canada, heard a student auditioning for the school musical’s
pit band. Advancing juvenile arthritis had made it extremely
difficult for her to play. It limited her physical strength, finger
and hand dexterity, and flexibility and mobility and greatly
impeded both fine and gross motor skills. It was very difficult
for her to hold the trumpet and depress its valves.4
About 70 million adults and 300,000 children in the
United States alone have arthritis.5 After years of training
and perfecting their craft, professional and nonprofessional
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FIGURE 7. Trombone further braced.
FIGURE 6. Trombone on stand.
performers are often unable to continue to play due to lack
of strength in the arm and hand caused by carpal tunnel syndrome, arthritis, or nerve damage.
This teacher felt the urge to find a solution to this problem
and, unable to find any equipment on the market that would
readily present a solution, resolved to build it himself. After
receiving funding from his regional department of learning,
Brown used personal time to tinker and experiment.
As with the air-powered trumpet, Brown also wanted to
make as few changes as possible to the horn. The process of
development was one of trial and error; development came
by experimenting with parts from auto wreckers, automotive
part dealerships, Home Depot, Princess Auto, and Canadian Tire.
The final prototype consisted of a 4.3-amp, 24-volt DC
transformer, a set of relays on a circuit board, three solenoids,
two small cooling fans, and a heat cutoff switch attached
under the solenoids. Each solenoid is activated by a touchsensitive key/switch embedded in a custom hand mold. The
hand mold was designed to accommodate the atypical shape
and form of the student’s arthritically deformed right hand.
An exoskeleton supports the key/switches in the hand mold,
solenoids, and cooling fans. The trumpet is attached to a
stand. The stand allows adjustment of the amount of pressure to the lips (embouchure) with very little left-hand
strength; this was accomplished with a spring counterbalance
mechanism. The design allows any traditional trumpet to be
fitted into the exoskeleton in approximately 5 minutes with92
Medical Problems of Performing Artists
out modification to the trumpet design. All of the parts dismantle for storage into a travel case on wheels.
A subsequent model improved on this design. It has a
unique dual retriggerable monostable multivibrator circuit to
reduce the heat generated by the solenoids (thus, no cooling
fans are needed). It allows full power to the solenoids’ pistons
at the instant the key/switch is depressed. When the solenoid piston is fully engaged, the circuit reduces power just
enough to hold the valve(s) down. The new board allows the
solenoids to be enclosed, reducing the mechanical action
sound. Cables connect the valves to the solenoids, eliminating any vibration to the mouthpiece.
The piccolo trumpet, alto horn, baritone, valve trombone,
and tuba all use a similar valve system, and the trumpet’s
technology is adaptable to these instruments. The rotary
valves of the French horn would require a repositioning of
the upper cables.
Thus, Brown’s trumpet allowed an individual with severe
juvenile arthritis to fully participate as a member of a concert
band, jazz band, and brass ensemble. For his efforts, he
received the Saskatoon Teachers Federation Award for the
Integration of Technology for the Disabled in 2002 and the
Award of Merit by the local arthritis society (2002). An e-mail
from a band repairman indicated that several clients, including professionals, have sought similar adaptations (personal
communication with Russ Brown, November 22, 2004).
TROMBONE HARNESS/STAND
In 2002, I received an e-mail from Carl Bradford of
Yarmouth, Maine. He had read about the air-powered trumpet I had developed and was asking for help for his friend, a
professional trombonist who had played with Maynard Ferguson’s band in the early 1960s but who was paralyzed on his
left side after a stroke. Physical therapy helped, but he
remained unable to hold the trombone with his left hand.
Moving the slide with his right hand, as normal, was not a
problem (personal communication with Carl Bradford,
March 2002).
Because the trombone is a relatively simple instrument in
terms of construction and operation, it might seem that adapting it would be an easy proposition. But, because of the finesse
a player needs in balancing the horn in relation to the body
while playing it, designing a solution proved difficult.
Therapists had fashioned a harness that attached to his
trombone. This enabled the player to hold the instrument
with his left hand enough to steady it, but the harness caused
considerable discomfort in the scapular area, including
painful cramps. A straight steel brace support was added to
the bottom of the horn, which then rested on his chair,
between his legs. This transferred some of the instrument’s
weight off the shoulder, with another strap in the back added
for additional stability. However, the design still lacked
enough rigidity to hold the horn in place without sliding
from back to front (personal communication with Carl Bradford, April 26, 2002).
My solution was to construct a floor-mounted stand that
would hold the trombone in place and stand freely. The
stand was attached to a piece of plywood that lay on the floor.
Not only would this stabilize the stand, but when the player
moved his wheelchair in place to play the horn, the weight of
the chair would render the entire system stable (Figure 6).
Working with two engineers, Mike Conboy and Bob
Sabola, this basic design proved more problematic than we
first thought. Even though we used a thick steel pipe, the
instrument proved unstable when the slide was used and
would wobble so much as to render it unplayable. The obvious solution was to add a second brace, but the instrument
continued to wobble. We then vertically placed two sheets of
plywood to the base, hoping to transfer the energy that was
causing the extraneous forces to the floor base. This also
failed.
We then determined that extra stabilization could be
accomplished by adding a third, adjoining brace. When you
cross-brace a structure into a second spatial plane, you immediately make it more stable, so we added this third brace to
connect the middle two (Figure 7). The resulting geometry
proved stable enough so that the trombone lost its wobble.
When the player first used the stand, he noted that it not
only solved the sliding problem endemic to the chest harness,
but it also provided sufficient lateral resistance so that he was
able to blow air with greater force, thus enabling him to play
in a higher register than he had been able to before. He
planned to continue the use of the therapist’s shoulder harness for some of his playing (including gigs, because it is more
portable than the stand) and the stand to build up his
embouchure (personal communication with player, February
28, 2004). With both aids, the player again has the ability to
blow changes with the best of them.
FIGURE 8. Trumpet showing attempted left-hand fingering.
REVERSE TRUMPET
In the late 1990s, a high-school trumpet player from Long
Island, New York, came to Jeff Vovakes, a musical instrument
repairman in Middlesex, Vermont, for help. The student was in
a wheelchair due to the effects of cerebral palsy. Trumpet players hold the trumpet with their left hand and press the valves
down with the right-hand fingers. This player, however, while
able to grasp with his right hand, had little use of its fingers. His
left hand, however, was relatively intact.
Vovakes decided to create what he calls a “reverse trumpet”; that is, the player fingers the valves with his left hand
while holding the instrument with the right hand (personal
communication with Jeff Vovakes, November 13, 2004).
While this may seem like an easy solution that wouldn’t
involve any adaptation, the problem is that the trumpet’s bell
(the open, flared section where the sound comes from) gets
in the way of the left hand (Figure 8), keeping the fingers
from the valves.
Vovakes decided to move this section. He took apart the
trumpet’s tubing and rotated the bell section approximately
40° clockwise so that the bell section of the horn was on the
right-hand side of the valves instead of the left. Consequently,
the lead pipe (the tube that the mouthpiece fits into) was also
rotated and was now on the left-hand side of the horn instead
of the right.
The only consequence of this new setup was that, due to
rotation of the piping, both the lead pipe and bell ends were
a little lower than normal in relation to the valves. This
caused no problems for the player.
CLARINET FOR A PLAYER WITH WEBBED
FINGERS
In 2003, a local high school student with congenital
hereditary syndactyly, a condition in which the middle and
ring fingers of the right hand are webbed together,
approached Vovakes. The student wanted to play clarinet
June 2005
93
able to the student. Vovakes decided that he would alter a regular clarinet by adding a key cover, complete with pad, to the
third ring. This would eliminate the need for the student to
have to cover the third hole with the finger alone. He then
added a metal tab to the top of the key cover, offset toward the
second hole (middle finger). Thus, by a combination of rotating the wrist clockwise, the ring finger, although attached to
the middle finger, still had enough movement to lean over
and press down on the tab, which would in turn lower the
cover on the third hole, thus covering it (Figures 9–11).
Vovakes also created a replacement set of keys so that it
could be turned back into a normal clarinet if desired.
FIGURE 9. Removed normal clarinet rings.
RECORDER FOR A PLAYER WITH ARTHRITIS
FIGURE 10. Clarinet rings with added adaptation.
Another central Vermont resident came to Vovakes with a
recorder problem. This woman had osteoarthritis (degenerative joint disease), one of the most common types of arthritis. She had diffuse involvement, including the fingers of her
right hand, which were severely deformed.
The recorder is a simple wind instrument in that one
changes the notes by either covering or uncovering holes with
the fingers (Figure 12). While Vovakes’s client was able to
move her fingers independently, she was unable to cover the
finger holes. She had played recorder all her life and, according to Vovakes, told him she wasn’t going to give up now,
asking him to adapt her instrument so she could keep playing.
To solve the problem, Vovakes decided to approach the
instrument as a saxophone. The fingering system of the saxo-
FIGURE 11. Clarinet with adapted rings in place.
but, due to the condition, was unable to cover the third hole
on the bottom stack (personal communication with Jeff
Vovakes, November 13, 2004). On the clarinet, not only do
you have to press down key rings with your fingers, your fingers also have to cover the holes inside the rings.
One immediate solution was for the student to use a
plateau clarinet, an instrument that, instead of having key
rings above the holes, has cupped pads like a saxophone. The
fingers push down on the cup and the leather pad inside the
cup covers the hole.
The Leblanc Corporation currently makes a plateau clarinet; however, because it is a specialty item, it was not afford94
Medical Problems of Performing Artists
FIGURE 12. Normal recorder.
FIGURE 13. Recorder with added keys.
phone is quite similar to the recorder, the main difference
being the way the holes are covered. As noted in the clarinet
case history, the player pushes down on a cupped key situated
above the hole, which then covers the hole itself.
Vovakes constructed an entire key mechanism out of brass
for the three holes of the right hand (bottom) and one for the
third finger of her left hand (top). He designed tabs on top of
the hole covers customized to match up to where the player’s
finger pads fell when playing the instrument. (The instrument
she played, an alto recorder, already had a low C key in place,
as seen on the bottom of the instrument; Figure 13.)
In the meantime, the pads that completed the seal
between the key and the finger holes were made out of cork
rather than leather. This was done to make it easier to find
the exact seal; if the seal didn’t quite work, Vovakes ran sandpaper between the lowered key and the body. In this way, the
cork sought its own tight seal.
The instrument worked perfectly, and the woman was
able to keep playing her beloved instrument with her friends
until she passed away a few years later (personal communication with Jeff Vovakes, November 13, 2004).
FINGER-GUIDED TUBA
In 2002, a tuba player in his 60s from St. Johnsbury, Vermont, came to Vovakes. He had diabetic neuropathy and
although he had sufficient finger strength to press down the
valves, he was unable to maintain lateral control. As he
pressed the valve down, his fingers tended to slip off the top
of the key pearls.
Vovakes saw what he hoped would be an easy fix and
found it in a trumpet. When holding a trumpet, the player’s
right-hand thumb sits in a “saddle,” which can be moved
from front to back to aid in keeping certain notes in tune.
Vovakes removed three such saddles from some old trumpets. After machining off the valve pearls from the tubaist’s
Besson tuba, he soft-soldered the trumpet valve saddles to the
top of the valves (Figure 14).
FIGURE 14. Tuba valve with saddles.
FIGURE 15. Sketch of flute apparatus.
The saddles kept the player’s fingers in place, on top of
the valves, and he was now able to play the tuba without any
problems (personal communication with Jeff Vovakes,
November 13, 2004).
COMPUTER-OPERATED FLUTE
The possibility of a flute player who had lost use of
normal finger dexterity occurred to Rosemary Metcalf, a
student at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Worcester,
Massachusetts. She designed a system that would be cognitively familiar to someone who had already played flute but
who could, for any number of medical reasons, use only one
hand. A normal flute without any modifications would be
held in the air by a floor stand. Nine fast-response, pushtype solenoids would be configured in such a way that when
the flute were attached to the stand, they would be fitted
over the nine main keys of the flute (operated by the left
hand’s thumb, index, middle, ring and pinky fingers and
the right hand’s index, middle, ring and pinky fingers) (Figures 15 and 16).6 This system existed as a design only and
was never actually fabricated.
While there are more than nine keys that are somewhat
important, this device covers the range of most beginning to
intermediate flute repertoire. Two full octaves are covered in
the user interface design.
In this way, the solenoids would act as mechanical fingers,
which press down the keys. The player would control the finJune 2005
95
FIGURE 16. Mounted solenoids diagram.
Doctors were able to reattach all but his pinky and replaced
his knuckles with plastic ones. All of the fingers responded to
some degree, with the exception of his ring finger. But,
despite this relatively good news, the doctors also pronounced
that he would never play the flute again. Undeterred, he contacted the Emerson Corporation, a maker of flutes, and asked
if they could help him. He needed something that would give
him an alternate option for playing his G/G# keys (played by
his ring finger and pinky, respectively) and the C key (played
by the index finger). Although that finger had been reattached, it flexed abnormally, veering off to the side. His
thumb and middle finger functioned normally.
Building an extension that allowed use of the tip of the
index finger to depress the key solved the C key problem. The
solution for the ring finger was to build extensions off both
the G and G# keys that are played using the pinky stump.
The player can rotate his pinky around an axis enough to be
able to play either the G key independently or both the G
and G# keys simultaneously (Figure 18).
Due to the new attitude of this hand, holding the flute
normally in the crook between his left thumb and index
finger was no longer an option. However, inspired by an
18th-century flute that had a crutch built for just this purpose, he had Emerson add such a crutch, which rests between
the thumb and index finger (Figure 19).
Due to some continuing pain in the player’s upper neck
and shoulder, the flute’s head joint was bent to a 30° angle,
FIGURE 17. Sample fingering chart for computer-operated flute.
gerings via a handheld cylindrical controller fitted with buttons. A new system of fingerings was devised for someone
with only one hand. The fingerings would be cognitively similar to the normal flute fingerings so as to make this part of
the transition as easy as possible (Figure 17).
A computer program would then be written that would
interface between the buttons and the solenoids; when a particular combination of buttons is pressed, the combination
of solenoids that corresponded to that note’s fingering would
be activated, thus pressing down the correct keys for that
note. Performers would either stand or sit near the device so
that they could place their lips on the lip plate and blow air
normally across the tone hole, thus producing the note that
was fingered.
FIGURE 18. Flute with G and G# key extensions.
MODIFIED FLUTE
A 25-year-old man in Colorado had played flute for about
6 months when he had an accident while working in a
sawmill that would have appeared to end his flute playing. In
the accident, he severed the thumb, index, middle, and ring
fingers of his left hand, and leaving only a one-inch stub of
his pinky.
96
Medical Problems of Performing Artists
FIGURE 19. Flute hand crutch.
which promoted dropping of the shoulders, thus relieving
pressure in the scapular area. Today, 27 years after the accident, the player enjoys playing his flute for friends and
family. He noted that, “There’s nothing like the moment
when you realize that you’ve been given back what has been
taken away” (personal communication with player, November 20, 2004).
ADAPTED DRUM-SET PEDAL
In 1999, a professional drummer who had played with
Elvis Presley, Sonny and Cher, and Bette Midler was stricken
with pneumonia. Complications developed that forced doctors to perform an above-the-knee amputation of his right
leg, thus preventing him from using the bass drum pedal on
his drum set. Medical people attempted to build a device that
would permit him to play again, but their lack of understanding of the mechanics of drum pedals and what is
required to lay down a strong beat was reflected in their prototype, which failed to do the job. He continued to teach but
doubted whether he could ever play again.
In September 2000, one of his students learned of the
Lemelson Center for Assistive Technology Development at
Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts, and
arranged for him to visit and tell his story. There, Julian
Groeli, a student and drummer, became involved in devising a way for the client to play the bass drum again, which
he called Project UpBeat. At first he tried to imitate the
shape of a leg to achieve its function. Along with fellow student Matthew Lorenz, Groeli built the first round of prototypes around this concept. Although the client was able to
use the device well in the controlled environment of the
workshop, it was too bulky and awkward to fit onto a real
drum set.
Groeli abandoned the leg concept in favor of a cable
system for more flexibility. He also noted that it would be
beneficial to make the design usable from a wheelchair, so
the player wouldn’t have to transfer every time he wanted to
play for brief periods. Groeli and Lorenz began to picture a
solution that could be used on its own or from a wheelchair.
It soon became obvious, however, that drumming from a
wheelchair was uncomfortable.
The new prototype worked well on an electric bass drum,
which consists of a simple pad connected to an amplifier; any
beat on the pad is greatly amplified to produce a “techno”
style drum sound. However, they were anxious to attach the
system to an acoustic kit. An acoustic drum absorbs more
energy than an electric pad, and the prototype was still
absorbing too much energy, making it hard to get enough
volume. Groeli realized that moving the pivot point to line
up with the drummer’s hip joint would bring the added
leverage they were looking for. They had finally arrived at the
root of the problem.
Before finishing this last version, Groeli modeled his
design in SolidWorks, a state-of-the-art CAD program. This
helped in visualizing unfinished sections of the prototype
(Figure 20).
FIGURE 20. CAD representation of adapted drum pedal.
From tinkering with possible solutions—watching them
fail and starting over from scratch—to finally listening to his
client play again was an incredibly rewarding experience for
Groeli. His client has been playing ever since, building up his
chops and giving his bass drum a good beating.
Groeli and Lorenz presented a version of their adapted
drum pedal at the Smithsonian Museum of American History at an exhibition of similar projects organized by the
National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance,
March Madness for the Mind in March 2001, where they
were interviewed by the Discovery Science Network (personal
communication with Julian Groeli, February 6, 2005). Other
examples of their adaptive engineering can be found at
http://www.julian.groeli.com.
CONCLUSIONS
What a gift it is to be able to make music, and what a
luxury to be able to enjoy it. The joy of music making never
diminishes; what may change, however, is one’s ability to do
so. As seen here, life’s pleasures can be denied by cruel twists
of fate. But as long as the spirit remains intact, and talented
friends and technicians are available who can contribute
their time and talent, affected musicians can often look forward to retaining their station in the world and to continue
to contribute their own certain amount of joy as they did
before. This article demonstrates that with collaboration
between people with different kinds of expertise, and a little
imagination, individuals with disabilities may continue their
music making. This is surely but a small sampling of other
similar stories that have happened over the years. As those
with medical training and musical knowledge can help heal
musicians, so instrument builders and repair experts can
June 2005
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modify instruments, enabling disabled musicians to continue
to perform.
3.
4.
REFERENCES
1.
2.
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