1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:06,139 ♪ Opening theme music ♪ 2 00:00:13,113 --> 00:00:17,917 Hello, and welcome to this episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation. 3 00:00:17,951 --> 00:00:19,919 My name is Diane Kolin. 4 00:00:19,953 --> 00:00:25,291 This series presents artists, academics, and project leaders who dedicate their 5 00:00:25,325 --> 00:00:31,231 time and energy to a better accessibility for people with disabilities in the arts. 6 00:00:31,264 --> 00:00:36,669 You can find more of these conversations on our website, artsably.com, 7 00:00:36,669 --> 00:00:42,042 which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com. 8 00:00:43,276 --> 00:00:48,415 ♪ Theme music ♪ 9 00:00:55,488 --> 00:01:01,127 Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation with Dr. Chi Yhun Lo, who is a research associate 10 00:01:01,127 --> 00:01:06,099 in the SMART Lab at Toronto Metropolitan University in Canada. 11 00:01:06,132 --> 00:01:10,437 You can find the resources mentioned by Chi Yhun Lo during this episode 12 00:01:10,437 --> 00:01:13,640 on ArtsAbly's website in the blog section. 13 00:01:14,908 --> 00:01:18,878 Welcome to this new episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation. 14 00:01:18,878 --> 00:01:20,246 Welcome, Chi. 15 00:01:20,280 --> 00:01:22,749 Thank you. Thank you for having me. 16 00:01:22,782 --> 00:01:29,389 Thank you for making space in the very busy schedule that you have right now. 17 00:01:29,389 --> 00:01:30,290 Okay. 18 00:01:30,290 --> 00:01:36,362 I read all the research that you're doing, and it's amazing. 19 00:01:36,362 --> 00:01:37,297 Thank you. 20 00:01:37,297 --> 00:01:43,837 I am interested in first exploring before the researcher where all that came from. 21 00:01:43,870 --> 00:01:46,506 Who are you? What is your background? 22 00:01:46,539 --> 00:01:48,208 Things like that. 23 00:01:48,241 --> 00:01:51,144 When did the little spark start? 24 00:01:51,177 --> 00:01:54,881 Yeah, I guess it really starts from childhood 25 00:01:54,881 --> 00:02:00,487 for me, where I think maybe in 26 00:02:00,520 --> 00:02:04,424 a lot of Asian households, the children are often encouraged to learn music. 27 00:02:04,457 --> 00:02:06,893 I have two other siblings. 28 00:02:06,926 --> 00:02:11,965 I learned piano, my brother learned cello, and my sister learned violin. 29 00:02:11,998 --> 00:02:14,868 We had a nice little trio. 30 00:02:14,901 --> 00:02:21,441 And I think that, to me, was the starting point for music engagement. 31 00:02:21,474 --> 00:02:25,211 But I suppose the thing was that I actually 32 00:02:25,211 --> 00:02:27,881 don't think I enjoyed music a lot as a child. 33 00:02:27,914 --> 00:02:31,784 I think it was all very... It was a little bit forced, 34 00:02:31,784 --> 00:02:33,586 and it was a little bit like rote learning. 35 00:02:33,620 --> 00:02:39,092 I didn't really have a real appreciation for it until a little bit later in life, 36 00:02:39,225 --> 00:02:42,795 when - I think when I was a teenager, 37 00:02:42,795 --> 00:02:48,001 and I think I really got into playing guitar, 38 00:02:48,034 --> 00:02:52,005 really got into the Beatles, and I was like, Ah, this is music to me. 39 00:02:52,005 --> 00:02:55,008 I understand it now. 40 00:02:55,008 --> 00:02:59,846 Music became something really incredibly fulfilling. 41 00:02:59,846 --> 00:03:04,584 I think it really formed a massive part of my social identity. 42 00:03:04,617 --> 00:03:06,853 Ever since then, I think I haven't really looked back 43 00:03:06,886 --> 00:03:09,756 in terms of musical engagement. 44 00:03:09,789 --> 00:03:16,462 I subsequently became an audio engineer when I left school, 45 00:03:16,496 --> 00:03:19,132 and I used to do a lot of... 46 00:03:20,233 --> 00:03:23,236 I did a lot of live shows, 47 00:03:23,269 --> 00:03:27,874 and I had two streams of types of shows. 48 00:03:27,907 --> 00:03:31,744 I would be doing either really big festival-type shows during 49 00:03:31,778 --> 00:03:33,913 the summer season in Sydney. 50 00:03:33,947 --> 00:03:36,182 There would be massive acts. 51 00:03:36,216 --> 00:03:41,154 It could be, for example, I did some work with Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys, 52 00:03:41,187 --> 00:03:48,428 Silver Apples, Nick Cave, Missy Higgins, some big Australian artists. 53 00:03:48,461 --> 00:03:53,733 But my main gig as well, I was a touring front-of-house audio engineer, 54 00:03:53,733 --> 00:03:56,836 and I used to do a lot of work for a children's band. 55 00:03:56,869 --> 00:04:01,641 It wasn't the Wiggles, it was the Hooli Doolies, the poor man's version 56 00:04:01,674 --> 00:04:03,943 of the Wiggles in Australia. 57 00:04:03,977 --> 00:04:09,749 And that, to me was a really fascinating period of my life, I suppose, 58 00:04:09,749 --> 00:04:13,920 where on one hand, I'm working with adults, and you can see see 59 00:04:13,953 --> 00:04:16,155 the importance of engagement with music. 60 00:04:16,189 --> 00:04:21,461 It's such a critical part, I think, of humanity. 61 00:04:21,494 --> 00:04:26,699 But at the same time, when you see the kids interacting, 62 00:04:26,733 --> 00:04:28,067 you can quite clearly see it. 63 00:04:28,067 --> 00:04:32,772 It's like, Wow, these are kids who have not really been trained in music. 64 00:04:32,805 --> 00:04:35,274 These are kids who are two, three, four years old, 65 00:04:35,308 --> 00:04:37,243 and they're engaging with music. They're dancing. 66 00:04:37,276 --> 00:04:43,149 There's something incredibly intuitive and almost instinctual 67 00:04:43,149 --> 00:04:45,685 when it comes to engagement with music. 68 00:04:46,786 --> 00:04:51,324 Then subsequently, I think... 69 00:04:51,324 --> 00:04:55,962 I think being an audio engineer or a roadie is a tough life. 70 00:04:55,995 --> 00:05:00,400 You have to move so much audio equipment, and 71 00:05:00,400 --> 00:05:04,103 you're the first one there, and you're the last one out. 72 00:05:04,137 --> 00:05:08,775 And I remember driving the truck back to the workshop at 4:00 AM, and I was thinking, 73 00:05:08,775 --> 00:05:11,778 I can't keep doing this. 74 00:05:11,778 --> 00:05:14,881 I think I need to find something else. 75 00:05:15,348 --> 00:05:21,821 So I decided to go to university, and I completed a bachelor degree 76 00:05:21,854 --> 00:05:24,524 in speech and hearing science. 77 00:05:24,557 --> 00:05:28,494 I don't know how it is here in Canada, but in Australia, you got a really thick 78 00:05:28,528 --> 00:05:31,431 book with all of the courses and all of the universities, 79 00:05:31,431 --> 00:05:35,902 and it's actually incredibly challenging to find out what it is you want to do. 80 00:05:35,935 --> 00:05:39,806 But I saw, oh, hearing, and I thought, oh, that's something 81 00:05:39,806 --> 00:05:41,607 that I'm deeply passionate about. 82 00:05:41,607 --> 00:05:46,546 So I jumped into that degree and I was very, 83 00:05:46,546 --> 00:05:49,649 very fortunate to get involved 84 00:05:49,682 --> 00:05:53,653 in an undergraduate internship program 85 00:05:53,653 --> 00:05:59,859 with Harvey Dillon at the National Acoustic Laboratories in Sydney. 86 00:05:59,859 --> 00:06:04,197 And Harvey at the time was the head of the National Acoustic Lab, which is 87 00:06:04,230 --> 00:06:08,968 the Australian Government Research Wing that does anything to do with 88 00:06:08,968 --> 00:06:10,970 hearing and deafness science. 89 00:06:11,104 --> 00:06:16,776 And I got involved in a project that was looking at spatial processing disorder, 90 00:06:16,776 --> 00:06:20,046 which is this condition where 91 00:06:20,246 --> 00:06:23,850 children have a lot of trouble focusing 92 00:06:23,883 --> 00:06:28,588 their sound by integrating their ears. 93 00:06:28,621 --> 00:06:32,892 And where this becomes really important is in the context of listening in 94 00:06:32,925 --> 00:06:37,096 a classroom, for example, where maybe you are with your class and they're all 95 00:06:37,130 --> 00:06:40,066 behind you and your teacher is in front. 96 00:06:40,099 --> 00:06:44,570 If you have spatial processing disorder, it it was very difficult 97 00:06:44,604 --> 00:06:46,272 to maybe separate the sound sources. 98 00:06:46,305 --> 00:06:52,245 The teacher is here and the classmates are here, but in your mind, 99 00:06:52,278 --> 00:06:54,881 everything is just condensed. 100 00:06:54,914 --> 00:06:59,152 So it was a project looking at that. 101 00:06:59,185 --> 00:07:02,121 And they developed a auditory training program. 102 00:07:02,155 --> 00:07:06,492 And my mind was blown because I was like, Auditory training? 103 00:07:06,526 --> 00:07:07,960 This is a thing? 104 00:07:07,994 --> 00:07:11,063 I had absolutely no conception of this. 105 00:07:11,097 --> 00:07:15,935 And so I got involved in a PhD project 106 00:07:15,935 --> 00:07:18,971 where I really utilized all of my experiences. 107 00:07:18,971 --> 00:07:25,478 I looked at my experience with music and audio engineering and all of that, 108 00:07:25,511 --> 00:07:28,247 and then this idea of auditory training. 109 00:07:28,247 --> 00:07:32,518 So my PhD started to explore the benefits of music for 110 00:07:32,518 --> 00:07:34,387 deaf and hard-of-hearing children. 111 00:07:34,420 --> 00:07:40,193 So that's, I guess, the short journey of how I've come through to that. 112 00:07:40,293 --> 00:07:45,665 So I'm currently a Senior Research Associate at the SMARTLab 113 00:07:45,698 --> 00:07:48,234 at Toronto Metropolitan University. 114 00:07:48,267 --> 00:07:53,306 I'm also affiliated with Macquarie University, 115 00:07:53,306 --> 00:07:59,011 where I'll be taking up a new postdoctoral position in the new year investigating 116 00:07:59,011 --> 00:08:02,348 neurodivergent auditory processing. 117 00:08:02,381 --> 00:08:06,252 I also have an honorary appointment with the Australian Institute 118 00:08:06,252 --> 00:08:08,221 of Health Innovation. 119 00:08:08,254 --> 00:08:13,759 And finally, the last hat that I'm going to put on is I do work 120 00:08:13,793 --> 00:08:16,596 with the Parents of deaf Children. 121 00:08:16,629 --> 00:08:22,768 So I'm currently the Secretary, but in the past, I've been the Vice President. 122 00:08:22,768 --> 00:08:28,708 And the Parents of Deaf Children are a nonprofit charity organization 123 00:08:28,741 --> 00:08:31,344 that supports deaf and hard-of-hearing families. 124 00:08:31,377 --> 00:08:38,284 It's really about providing families with as much unbiased and 125 00:08:38,317 --> 00:08:42,321 really informed information so that they can articulate and make 126 00:08:42,355 --> 00:08:44,123 the best decisions for their family. 127 00:08:44,156 --> 00:08:45,925 I guess that's 128 00:08:45,958 --> 00:08:52,198 my basic introduction in a nutshell. 129 00:08:52,231 --> 00:08:58,905 Can you give us a little bit of details on, for example, I know you did a lot 130 00:08:58,938 --> 00:09:03,009 of work about cochlear implants. 131 00:09:03,009 --> 00:09:09,282 You did research, you did processing, and back in Australia, but also 132 00:09:09,315 --> 00:09:13,019 what you're doing right now in the lab. 133 00:09:13,019 --> 00:09:13,953 Yes. 134 00:09:13,953 --> 00:09:16,789 Can you explain what you're doing exactly? 135 00:09:16,789 --> 00:09:18,057 Definitely. 136 00:09:18,057 --> 00:09:23,262 It was a very rich experience in Australia because 137 00:09:23,262 --> 00:09:27,166 I was based in the Australian Hearing Hub at Macquarie University, 138 00:09:27,166 --> 00:09:32,638 and literally next door, about 50 meters away from us, was Cochlear headquarters. 139 00:09:32,638 --> 00:09:37,610 It was an excellent opportunity to really do some collaboration 140 00:09:37,610 --> 00:09:39,145 with Cochlear Limited over there. 141 00:09:39,178 --> 00:09:41,948 I have done some consulting with them 142 00:09:41,948 --> 00:09:44,784 on some of their music applications, for example. 143 00:09:45,618 --> 00:09:48,688 So a lot of my work coming out of my PhD 144 00:09:48,721 --> 00:09:52,825 and continuing since then was really 145 00:09:52,825 --> 00:09:55,328 looking at music and deafness. 146 00:09:55,328 --> 00:09:58,230 And I think when I talk about music and deafness, I guess the first thing 147 00:09:58,264 --> 00:10:02,234 that comes to our mind is, okay, in this contemporary context, 148 00:10:02,268 --> 00:10:05,838 it's music and hearing aids, music and cochlear implants. 149 00:10:05,871 --> 00:10:10,443 And a lot of people are often like, oh, it must be such a new 150 00:10:10,476 --> 00:10:13,913 topic, such a new experience. 151 00:10:13,946 --> 00:10:18,484 But I think what's really fascinating is, and I'm just going to pull up a slide 152 00:10:18,517 --> 00:10:23,723 on here because I want to read this section, because it actually comes 153 00:10:23,756 --> 00:10:26,559 from the American Annals of the Deaf 154 00:10:26,592 --> 00:10:31,998 And there was an article from 1848. 155 00:10:32,031 --> 00:10:35,234 Okay, so this is 250 years ago. 156 00:10:35,267 --> 00:10:42,041 This is predating, essentially, the fields of the professionization of audiology 157 00:10:42,074 --> 00:10:44,143 and psychology, almost. 158 00:10:44,176 --> 00:10:48,381 And the article was "Music Among the Deaf" 159 00:10:48,381 --> 00:10:50,483 by W. W. Turner. 160 00:10:50,549 --> 00:10:56,188 And in this, and I just want to read this quote here, he writes this here, 161 00:10:56,222 --> 00:11:01,527 "We have often been asked the question by visitors: have the deaf any idea of sound? 162 00:11:01,560 --> 00:11:05,998 We have answered: they have no more idea of sound than the blind have of colours, 163 00:11:05,998 --> 00:11:09,068 as the idea of sound can be imparted to the mind 164 00:11:09,101 --> 00:11:12,171 only through the sense of hearing. 165 00:11:12,171 --> 00:11:16,742 Those who are totally deaf must therefore be wholly destitute of any such idea." 166 00:11:16,776 --> 00:11:18,444 These are very, very powerful words. 167 00:11:18,477 --> 00:11:21,981 And again, this is coming from the context of 1848. 168 00:11:22,014 --> 00:11:26,652 "They may know much about sound, may know how it is propagated. 169 00:11:26,652 --> 00:11:32,224 Its law of transmission may be familiar to them, and still, they may and must be 170 00:11:32,258 --> 00:11:34,927 entirely ignorant of its nature. 171 00:11:34,927 --> 00:11:39,932 Another question is sometimes asked, whether the deaf can be taught music. 172 00:11:39,932 --> 00:11:44,904 This question, like the first, we have answered in the negative, 173 00:11:44,937 --> 00:11:49,141 presuming that hearing is indispensable to its acquisition." 174 00:11:49,175 --> 00:11:52,478 But this is the important part right at the end here. 175 00:11:52,511 --> 00:11:57,249 "A little reflection might have led us to a different conclusion." 176 00:11:57,249 --> 00:11:59,385 And fortunately, W. W. Turner 177 00:11:59,385 --> 00:12:01,087 did spend a lot of time reflecting. 178 00:12:01,087 --> 00:12:06,792 He was very lucky because he met a young woman who was profoundly deaf. 179 00:12:06,826 --> 00:12:12,631 Her name was August Avery, and she had been trained how to play piano. 180 00:12:12,665 --> 00:12:14,300 And he was absolutely gobsback. 181 00:12:14,333 --> 00:12:16,168 He couldn't believe it at first. 182 00:12:16,168 --> 00:12:22,741 But when he realized to some extent, how wrong his initial conceptualisation of 183 00:12:22,775 --> 00:12:28,681 what music and deafness, that interaction meant, he really turned his idea around. 184 00:12:28,714 --> 00:12:36,155 He subsequently became a real champion for deafness and music. 185 00:12:36,188 --> 00:12:40,759 And so for me, I think historically, and even to this day, 186 00:12:40,793 --> 00:12:45,731 there's a real prioritization that 187 00:12:45,731 --> 00:12:49,969 music engagement is all about hearing. 188 00:12:49,969 --> 00:12:56,542 And to some extent, this is quite incompatible to, I think, the 189 00:12:56,575 --> 00:12:59,145 general idea of what deafness entails. 190 00:12:59,178 --> 00:13:02,248 But for me, there's a lot of things to unpack. 191 00:13:02,248 --> 00:13:07,119 Number one, the construction of deafness is across a whole range. 192 00:13:07,153 --> 00:13:11,290 We have a whole range of using 193 00:13:11,323 --> 00:13:14,860 the medical model of deaf diagnosis, 194 00:13:14,894 --> 00:13:18,063 from mild to complete deafness. 195 00:13:18,097 --> 00:13:22,234 There are also assistive listening devices that we can use, 196 00:13:22,234 --> 00:13:24,303 hearing aids and cochlear implants. 197 00:13:25,204 --> 00:13:30,676 There's also the use of sign language or other alternative or augmented 198 00:13:30,709 --> 00:13:32,912 communication methods as well. 199 00:13:32,945 --> 00:13:37,116 And I want to bring all of these in because when I think about music, 200 00:13:37,149 --> 00:13:40,119 again, it's not just about hearing and that auditory thing. 201 00:13:40,152 --> 00:13:46,792 So if I use the example of, let's say, Let's have a violin player, for example. 202 00:13:46,826 --> 00:13:51,230 Now we've got our violin player, and maybe we set them up and they've got 203 00:13:51,230 --> 00:13:54,133 their score in front of them. 204 00:13:54,133 --> 00:13:57,770 And so we've got the action of playing. We've got motor control here. 205 00:13:57,770 --> 00:14:01,207 So we've got this motor system being engaged. 206 00:14:01,207 --> 00:14:05,477 We've got the use of the visual system because we're looking at the score. 207 00:14:05,511 --> 00:14:09,615 We also clearly have the auditory system, and it's a bit of a feedback loop 208 00:14:09,648 --> 00:14:11,884 because we're trying to play something and we want to hear it, 209 00:14:11,917 --> 00:14:16,889 and we might make adjustments if we're not playing the right key. 210 00:14:17,423 --> 00:14:22,595 But now let's say maybe we remove the sheet music. 211 00:14:22,628 --> 00:14:26,966 Now we're leveraging executive functioning and working memory. 212 00:14:26,966 --> 00:14:32,771 Maybe we ask the violinist, please compose us some music. 213 00:14:32,771 --> 00:14:36,675 So again, we're leveraging all of this cognition and creativity. 214 00:14:36,709 --> 00:14:41,113 Maybe we turn it into an ensemble, and now we've got this group 215 00:14:41,113 --> 00:14:43,182 and social dynamic happening. 216 00:14:43,215 --> 00:14:47,753 So really, the function of music, yes, audition is a part of it, 217 00:14:47,786 --> 00:14:49,989 but it's massive in scope. 218 00:14:50,022 --> 00:14:54,526 And I think when we think about it in this multisensory perspective, 219 00:14:54,526 --> 00:15:00,899 that's a much better way of looking at how music can be universally applied irrespective 220 00:15:00,933 --> 00:15:03,369 of what capacities you might have. 221 00:15:03,369 --> 00:15:07,673 And then we can also think about how we can generate benefits 222 00:15:07,706 --> 00:15:11,944 through this conceptualization of music. 223 00:15:11,977 --> 00:15:17,883 So my work with cochlear implants 224 00:15:17,917 --> 00:15:22,087 and hearing aids and deafness in general, 225 00:15:22,087 --> 00:15:27,426 it really stems from some of my interactions that I had with 226 00:15:27,459 --> 00:15:33,666 family members to begin with, where a lot of them would tell me that, 227 00:15:33,699 --> 00:15:37,102 number one, in the Australian context, a lot of deaf and hard-of-hearing 228 00:15:37,136 --> 00:15:39,004 kids are mainstream-educated. 229 00:15:40,105 --> 00:15:44,710 I'm not entirely sure how the context plays out in Canada, but I 230 00:15:44,743 --> 00:15:46,712 assume that it's probably similar. 231 00:15:46,745 --> 00:15:51,150 These days, we have newborn hearing screening, early intervention. 232 00:15:51,183 --> 00:15:56,689 So a lot of these children are having very good access to auditory cues, 233 00:15:57,489 --> 00:16:01,226 and subsequently, quite sadly, to some extent, a lot of specialized deaf schools 234 00:16:01,226 --> 00:16:04,196 have been reducing in their numbers. 235 00:16:04,229 --> 00:16:06,231 I think there are pros and cons. 236 00:16:06,332 --> 00:16:11,136 But a lot of the families would often tell me that 237 00:16:11,370 --> 00:16:14,740 when it came to something like music engagement, 238 00:16:14,773 --> 00:16:20,012 maybe they have a choir, for example, in the school, or they have a little 239 00:16:20,045 --> 00:16:24,249 ensemble, or maybe they're all just playing recorder, like a lot of kids. 240 00:16:24,383 --> 00:16:27,753 A lot of parents would often express that 241 00:16:28,253 --> 00:16:32,191 the teachers and the staff really 242 00:16:32,224 --> 00:16:37,296 didn't think that these deaf and hard-of-hearing kids would be 243 00:16:37,463 --> 00:16:40,599 suitable to join these classes. 244 00:16:40,632 --> 00:16:42,301 There's a lot of exclusion here. 245 00:16:42,334 --> 00:16:46,872 For me, coming from this perspective of music fundamentally has been 246 00:16:46,872 --> 00:16:51,810 so important for my development, and I think it has a real place 247 00:16:51,844 --> 00:16:55,147 to play in really everyone's development. 248 00:16:55,180 --> 00:16:57,883 For me, that was just this plan discriminatory. 249 00:16:57,916 --> 00:17:03,288 And so for me, as a researcher and as an advocate as well, having these two 250 00:17:03,322 --> 00:17:05,124 hats, I was like, well, what can I do? 251 00:17:05,157 --> 00:17:08,427 And so I was like, well, I really want to explore what are the benefits 252 00:17:08,427 --> 00:17:13,799 of music participation for deaf and hard-of-hearing kids. 253 00:17:13,832 --> 00:17:19,805 So my PhD explored a 12-week music program, 254 00:17:19,838 --> 00:17:22,908 and this was primarily music therapy 255 00:17:22,908 --> 00:17:25,944 supplemented or complemented by 256 00:17:25,978 --> 00:17:29,815 this app that we had. And on the app, 257 00:17:29,848 --> 00:17:33,652 it was a range of musical activities. 258 00:17:34,019 --> 00:17:37,523 And after this 12-week period, we were interested in a couple 259 00:17:37,556 --> 00:17:39,191 of different outcomes. 260 00:17:39,224 --> 00:17:45,631 Number one, the biggest challenge for most deaf and hard-of-hearing 261 00:17:45,664 --> 00:17:51,703 kids comes with listening in noisy and complex environments. 262 00:17:52,004 --> 00:17:56,308 And that's really where, I would argue, that's where a lot 263 00:17:56,308 --> 00:17:58,710 of social activity happens. 264 00:17:58,944 --> 00:18:03,749 If you think about any social engagement we have, whether it's a restaurant, 265 00:18:03,782 --> 00:18:11,323 a pub, a club, even libraries are quite noisy these days, a lot of them. 266 00:18:11,390 --> 00:18:15,994 These are places where we have these powerful social interactions. 267 00:18:16,028 --> 00:18:19,465 And when we think about it in the context of children, it's happening 268 00:18:19,498 --> 00:18:23,669 in the classroom where, again, they engage in a lot of auditory tasks 269 00:18:23,702 --> 00:18:26,738 and children are inherently noisy. 270 00:18:26,772 --> 00:18:30,442 So really the educational outcomes, that's a big part. 271 00:18:30,476 --> 00:18:34,046 But another consideration is what happens in outside 272 00:18:34,046 --> 00:18:35,647 the classroom and in the playground. 273 00:18:35,647 --> 00:18:38,650 Again, a very noisy place, but that is really where all 274 00:18:38,684 --> 00:18:40,519 of that social facilitation happens. 275 00:18:40,552 --> 00:18:46,725 And for children, once they've reached the of about five, six onwards, they start 276 00:18:46,725 --> 00:18:51,063 moving away from these dyadic or these one-on-one conversations, and they start 277 00:18:51,096 --> 00:18:53,398 moving towards group conversations. 278 00:18:53,432 --> 00:18:56,935 So it's really important that we really maximize the opportunity to communicate 279 00:18:56,969 --> 00:19:02,307 in these complex and noisy environments where they're going to be learning either 280 00:19:02,341 --> 00:19:06,278 their education or they're going to be learning how to socialize and 281 00:19:06,311 --> 00:19:09,381 develop a peer support network. 282 00:19:09,414 --> 00:19:15,120 And the really nice finding from the PhD was after 12 weeks 283 00:19:15,153 --> 00:19:17,389 of music, there were dual benefits. 284 00:19:17,422 --> 00:19:20,359 There was a benefit for speech and noise perception, 285 00:19:20,392 --> 00:19:23,395 so we found communication benefits. 286 00:19:23,428 --> 00:19:27,866 But on the other side of things, we also found psychosocial benefits, too. 287 00:19:27,900 --> 00:19:34,273 So things such as what we classify as these internalized problems, 288 00:19:34,306 --> 00:19:39,244 things like low mood or depression, these were also boosted by by music engagement. 289 00:19:39,278 --> 00:19:45,817 So for me, it was a really sad hearing what had been happening historically 290 00:19:45,851 --> 00:19:51,790 where teachers or the school system might be thinking, these deaf 291 00:19:51,790 --> 00:19:54,960 and hard-of-hearing kids, they can't participate in music. 292 00:19:54,993 --> 00:19:59,631 When in fact, my findings were, there were some really specific benefits here 293 00:19:59,665 --> 00:20:03,602 that are specifically beneficial for deaf and hard-of-hearing kids. 294 00:20:03,635 --> 00:20:07,172 So to deny them this is absolutely terrible. 295 00:20:07,172 --> 00:20:13,345 So I've been using a lot of that to try and articulate the accessibility of music 296 00:20:13,378 --> 00:20:15,447 for deaf and hard-of-hearing kids. 297 00:20:16,181 --> 00:20:22,421 Now, there's this broader political perspective happening in Australia 298 00:20:22,454 --> 00:20:27,459 at the moment, where I'm not sure if you're familiar with the National 299 00:20:27,492 --> 00:20:33,131 Disability Insurance Agency, the NDIA, or the National Disability Insurance Scheme. 300 00:20:33,298 --> 00:20:39,171 So this is a massive political undertaking that happened about 10 years ago. 301 00:20:39,171 --> 00:20:45,744 And the Australian federal government provides a significant amount of financial 302 00:20:45,777 --> 00:20:51,450 support for a range of disabilities. 303 00:20:52,150 --> 00:20:56,989 Essentially, if you have a disability, you can sign up for this program. 304 00:20:57,022 --> 00:21:00,993 And depending on what your functional needs are, they provide you 305 00:21:00,993 --> 00:21:05,797 with full monetary funding support. 306 00:21:05,831 --> 00:21:10,168 For example, if you are a deaf and hard-of-hearing child, you might require 307 00:21:10,202 --> 00:21:13,972 audiological service, you might require speech pathology service, you might 308 00:21:14,006 --> 00:21:18,877 require sign language, interpretation services, so on, the whole range. 309 00:21:18,910 --> 00:21:24,349 But it extends a little bit further than maybe these typical medical perspectives. 310 00:21:25,050 --> 00:21:28,787 You can also access things like music therapy or art therapy 311 00:21:28,787 --> 00:21:34,693 or creative therapy until recently, where they're starting 312 00:21:34,693 --> 00:21:39,097 to tighten up on their funding model. 313 00:21:39,164 --> 00:21:43,468 And sadly, I think the same thing that happens in education whenever 314 00:21:43,502 --> 00:21:47,339 the money is getting a little bit thin, the first thing they always remove 315 00:21:47,372 --> 00:21:50,776 is the creative art and music therapy. 316 00:21:50,809 --> 00:21:53,545 This is something that's been happening recently where they're in discussion 317 00:21:53,578 --> 00:21:59,785 about removing music therapy as one of their key services that the Australian 318 00:21:59,818 --> 00:22:02,287 government will fund and provide. 319 00:22:02,287 --> 00:22:06,558 Again, to me, this just goes in the face of everything that I and others 320 00:22:06,591 --> 00:22:11,663 have researched, where we found these specific benefits, and to remove that 321 00:22:11,697 --> 00:22:13,799 goes against the empirical evidence. 322 00:22:13,832 --> 00:22:16,368 It's something I really want to push back against because I think 323 00:22:16,401 --> 00:22:19,705 it's going to set us back considerably. 324 00:22:19,738 --> 00:22:23,075 That is one of the sad things that's currently happening 325 00:22:23,108 --> 00:22:24,576 in the Australian landscape. 326 00:22:26,011 --> 00:22:32,284 With your research, are you able to try to prove that it's going 327 00:22:32,317 --> 00:22:38,824 the wrong way and maybe try to have a communication with these services? 328 00:22:38,857 --> 00:22:40,592 Exactly. That's exactly what we've done. 329 00:22:40,625 --> 00:22:45,597 We have already been partnering with the Australian Music Therapy Association. 330 00:22:45,630 --> 00:22:51,903 They are the peak body that represents music therapy in Australia. 331 00:22:51,937 --> 00:22:55,207 They are the ones who are most effective at the moment. 332 00:22:55,207 --> 00:23:00,145 We have been writing as many letters of support as we can. 333 00:23:00,178 --> 00:23:02,948 And a lot of other... 334 00:23:02,981 --> 00:23:07,552 Even like the field of audiology, there are a lot of people in there who have 335 00:23:07,586 --> 00:23:10,555 been able to amplify our voice as well. 336 00:23:10,589 --> 00:23:14,626 So we have already had discussions with some of the key politicians 337 00:23:14,659 --> 00:23:19,397 So hopefully, come the new year, they're going to have a bit of a rethink, 338 00:23:19,431 --> 00:23:23,201 because I would love to see music and creative and art therapy still 339 00:23:23,235 --> 00:23:27,272 maintained within the National Disability Insurance Scheme. 340 00:23:27,305 --> 00:23:29,441 And this is your... 341 00:23:29,474 --> 00:23:33,311 I wouldn't say the study cases because 342 00:23:33,345 --> 00:23:37,616 it's not human enough, but 343 00:23:37,616 --> 00:23:42,954 the people you work with, it's mostly children, or did you work also with adults? 344 00:23:42,988 --> 00:23:45,056 I've also worked with adults. 345 00:23:45,090 --> 00:23:51,163 That was really the start of my PhD, but I've since expanded. 346 00:23:51,196 --> 00:23:56,234 A lot of the work now actually continues through my current PhD student. 347 00:23:56,268 --> 00:24:00,539 So I want to have a shout out to my 348 00:24:00,539 --> 00:24:04,342 absolutely wonderful PhD candidate, Felicity Bleckly. 349 00:24:04,376 --> 00:24:09,948 She's a bilateral cochlear implant user, and her PhD is really 350 00:24:09,948 --> 00:24:16,688 focused on some much more complex ideas now now around music and deafness. 351 00:24:16,922 --> 00:24:21,293 Her PhD is really focused on, number one, a specific type of deafness. 352 00:24:21,326 --> 00:24:28,033 Whereas I was looking at things such as congenital or prelingual deafness 353 00:24:28,066 --> 00:24:33,004 in the context of children, she's focusing exclusively on postlingual 354 00:24:33,038 --> 00:24:40,278 or almost like age-related hearing losses, where we do know as a typical function, 355 00:24:40,312 --> 00:24:43,582 our hearing does decline with age. 356 00:24:43,615 --> 00:24:49,421 But her real interest, I guess it comes from her own personal 357 00:24:49,454 --> 00:24:55,293 experience, where she has always had a profound connection with music 358 00:24:55,327 --> 00:24:58,730 as a musician, like so many musicians do. 359 00:24:58,730 --> 00:25:03,301 And she subsequently lost her hearing later in life 360 00:25:03,335 --> 00:25:06,471 and now uses two cochlear implants. 361 00:25:06,505 --> 00:25:12,444 And she initially found the experience in terms of that auditory perception 362 00:25:12,477 --> 00:25:17,182 and that level of engagement It just wasn't sufficient. 363 00:25:17,215 --> 00:25:23,622 And it's impossible for us to expect any device, such as the cochlear implant, 364 00:25:23,655 --> 00:25:27,726 to replace our hearing ability. 365 00:25:27,726 --> 00:25:31,630 It's a completely different way of interpreting sound. 366 00:25:31,663 --> 00:25:37,869 We have close to, I think, maybe 20,000 hair cells that do 367 00:25:37,869 --> 00:25:42,040 a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to auditory perception. 368 00:25:42,040 --> 00:25:46,778 And when we look at the cochlear implant, we are down to 20, 369 00:25:46,811 --> 00:25:50,081 20 electrodes maybe trying to do the job of 20,000 hair cells. 370 00:25:50,081 --> 00:25:54,386 So we lose a lot of the acuity. 371 00:25:54,419 --> 00:25:56,888 But that area has been investigated quite a lot. 372 00:25:56,922 --> 00:26:04,162 We do know that auditorially, a cochlear implant is nowhere near a human ear. 373 00:26:04,195 --> 00:26:09,834 But the area that Felicity is really interested in is a lot more nuanced, 374 00:26:09,834 --> 00:26:14,839 a lot more psychological, where it's like, okay, well, what is the consequence? 375 00:26:14,873 --> 00:26:20,412 How do people engage with music when they have a postlingual deafness? 376 00:26:20,412 --> 00:26:23,782 And how does their relationship with music change? 377 00:26:23,815 --> 00:26:29,721 For example, she often talks about how there is such a massive grieving process 378 00:26:29,754 --> 00:26:36,428 for her because on one hand, she hasn't just lost some hearing capacity. 379 00:26:36,461 --> 00:26:41,733 She's also lost that connection and that engagement with music to some extent. 380 00:26:41,733 --> 00:26:45,036 A lot of our research trying to understand, well, how can we get 381 00:26:45,070 --> 00:26:46,204 that level of engagement back? 382 00:26:46,237 --> 00:26:52,677 How can we maybe reframe music to some extent? 383 00:26:52,711 --> 00:26:57,148 It's really interesting as well where I think some of the methods that Felicity 384 00:26:57,148 --> 00:27:01,052 is using as well It's not a very traditional 385 00:27:01,152 --> 00:27:05,523 scientific study, where maybe we have 386 00:27:05,523 --> 00:27:08,326 a battery of questionnaires and we bring someone into the lab 387 00:27:08,326 --> 00:27:11,896 and we're like, Can you tell us what this sounded like? 388 00:27:11,930 --> 00:27:13,198 And look at the performance. 389 00:27:13,231 --> 00:27:18,503 Very stereotypical standard psychological experiment. 390 00:27:18,536 --> 00:27:21,473 In this case, Felicity is asking for a whole battery 391 00:27:21,473 --> 00:27:27,112 of very interesting things, where we ask individuals to send us 392 00:27:27,145 --> 00:27:31,249 little snippets of music that might have some very personal 393 00:27:31,249 --> 00:27:35,620 significance, some meaning, or we ask them to send in some imagery 394 00:27:35,653 --> 00:27:37,389 that also has meaning. 395 00:27:37,489 --> 00:27:39,791 And we start doing analysis of this 396 00:27:39,824 --> 00:27:46,965 or a little biographical written two-page 397 00:27:46,998 --> 00:27:49,968 piece about their experience as well. 398 00:27:50,001 --> 00:27:54,673 We're triangulating all of this data to have a more holistic perspective 399 00:27:54,673 --> 00:27:56,541 of what music might mean. 400 00:27:57,308 --> 00:28:02,013 I think what's really interesting is how for a lot of these individuals, 401 00:28:03,148 --> 00:28:09,721 there is this initial grieving period, where there's a massive period of loss, 402 00:28:09,754 --> 00:28:14,826 where for a lot of them, and I think I'd be the same as well, 403 00:28:14,893 --> 00:28:17,195 music has always been there for me. 404 00:28:17,228 --> 00:28:19,964 It doesn't matter in what emotional state. 405 00:28:19,998 --> 00:28:24,369 I mean, if I'm happy, if I'm sad, if I'm high, if I'm low, if I need 406 00:28:24,402 --> 00:28:28,073 a boost, or if I need something to calm me down, music is always there. 407 00:28:28,106 --> 00:28:32,043 But you imagine when you lose that sense that connects you primarily, 408 00:28:32,043 --> 00:28:38,483 or the sense that you have always associated through hearing with music, 409 00:28:38,516 --> 00:28:45,824 and you lose that, and you are also grappling with your new sense of sound. 410 00:28:45,857 --> 00:28:52,530 And now your one source of comfort music is also diminished, it's also gone. 411 00:28:52,564 --> 00:28:55,900 So it's almost like a double problem. 412 00:28:55,934 --> 00:28:58,670 So that's what we are currently exploring. 413 00:28:58,703 --> 00:29:02,507 Because a lot of the hearing aid manufacturers, a lot of the 414 00:29:02,507 --> 00:29:07,245 cochlear implant manufacturers, a lot of the engineers, the focus is primarily 415 00:29:07,278 --> 00:29:10,181 on speech perception and communication. 416 00:29:10,215 --> 00:29:12,817 And for us, it's all like, okay, that's all well and good. 417 00:29:12,851 --> 00:29:16,588 But have you also also just considered music is going to be really 418 00:29:16,588 --> 00:29:22,160 important, not just for musicians, but really a lot of people. 419 00:29:22,193 --> 00:29:25,563 So we really want to look at ways in which we can prove the acuity 420 00:29:25,597 --> 00:29:27,999 of these devices on one hand. 421 00:29:28,032 --> 00:29:32,003 But we also just want to understand, Okay, what's really happening 422 00:29:32,036 --> 00:29:36,508 and how can we maybe develop programs in the future that might be able 423 00:29:36,541 --> 00:29:41,412 to articulate this a little better, or maybe even just communicate this 424 00:29:41,412 --> 00:29:48,453 with audiologists so that they to be fundamentally aware of what the needs are. 425 00:29:48,453 --> 00:29:52,924 In France, there is a specific brand called Audika. 426 00:29:52,957 --> 00:29:58,530 This brand developed a few years ago a special program. 427 00:29:58,530 --> 00:30:06,437 I think their first study cases were with Radio France, so the French National Radio. 428 00:30:06,471 --> 00:30:08,640 Then they extended it to anybody. 429 00:30:08,673 --> 00:30:13,044 It's based on hearing aids 430 00:30:13,077 --> 00:30:16,648 or hearing improvements for musicians. 431 00:30:16,648 --> 00:30:23,321 They created a full lab with a lot of ways to measure. 432 00:30:23,354 --> 00:30:26,791 You have to come with your instrument or to sing if you're a singer. 433 00:30:26,825 --> 00:30:32,830 Then they test and they follow the progression. 434 00:30:32,864 --> 00:30:39,003 They have developed a special kind of earring aids 435 00:30:39,037 --> 00:30:41,272 where it's way more improved 436 00:30:41,272 --> 00:30:42,707 than any other earring aids. 437 00:30:42,707 --> 00:30:47,278 You have way more settings, you have way more channels, 438 00:30:47,278 --> 00:30:53,785 and you're rechecked very frequently, and I followed their study and it's very interesting. 439 00:30:53,818 --> 00:30:58,790 I wonder if you had that experience to test with instruments 440 00:30:58,823 --> 00:31:01,192 directly with the participants? 441 00:31:01,226 --> 00:31:01,993 Yes. 442 00:31:01,993 --> 00:31:06,231 Well, in Felicity's study, that's not the focus, but that was the focus 443 00:31:06,231 --> 00:31:10,368 of some of my work previously and some of my other work as well. 444 00:31:10,535 --> 00:31:15,173 We are very interested in, I guess, looking at different types 445 00:31:15,173 --> 00:31:18,076 of perceptual judgments. 446 00:31:18,109 --> 00:31:23,982 One of the tasks that we do look at in the pediatric study was 447 00:31:23,982 --> 00:31:26,884 how they can identify different instruments. 448 00:31:27,852 --> 00:31:32,290 It's also really interesting, I suppose, because a lot of parents 449 00:31:32,290 --> 00:31:35,193 often ask me at the end of the study, Oh, okay. 450 00:31:35,226 --> 00:31:40,665 My child really enjoyed participating in music, and we want to continue. 451 00:31:40,698 --> 00:31:43,167 What instrument can you recommend? 452 00:31:43,167 --> 00:31:46,271 That's probably the most common question I've always been asked, 453 00:31:46,271 --> 00:31:48,239 what instrument can I recommend? 454 00:31:48,273 --> 00:31:50,475 And for me, there's a couple of ways to answer this. 455 00:31:50,508 --> 00:31:56,581 So perceptually, pitch is going to be more challenging than rhythm. 456 00:31:56,614 --> 00:32:00,285 So you could argue that going for percussive instruments 457 00:32:00,285 --> 00:32:04,989 is an easier choice if maybe you're looking at 458 00:32:04,989 --> 00:32:07,525 getting them into music's beginning. 459 00:32:07,525 --> 00:32:11,162 But I don't necessarily think that's the best approach because 460 00:32:11,162 --> 00:32:15,433 there are other different types of instruments where even though their pitch perception 461 00:32:15,433 --> 00:32:19,370 might not be as good as a typical hearing child, for me, that just doesn't matter. 462 00:32:19,370 --> 00:32:25,209 I think it's the same concept in, I am not going to have as good pitch perception 463 00:32:25,243 --> 00:32:26,878 as a professional musician. 464 00:32:26,911 --> 00:32:32,183 It doesn't mean that I'm not going to just try playing piano anyway. 465 00:32:32,216 --> 00:32:36,888 Piano also has the advantage where you can see all of the keys distinctly, and 466 00:32:36,921 --> 00:32:41,693 they're labeled and organized in a very sensible way from low to high in pitch. 467 00:32:42,026 --> 00:32:46,030 It's similar in a guitar or a stringed instrument, but there's a little bit more 468 00:32:46,030 --> 00:32:49,233 complexity as well because you have those multiple strings happening. 469 00:32:49,267 --> 00:32:52,270 But my answer for parents was always really quite simple. 470 00:32:52,303 --> 00:32:57,208 I was like, there is no such thing as a best instrument for any given child. 471 00:32:57,241 --> 00:33:01,012 It's just, what's the best instrument for your child is provide 472 00:33:01,045 --> 00:33:03,481 a whole suite, a whole array. 473 00:33:03,514 --> 00:33:07,552 Don't go and buy the the instrument outright, just hire it or hopefully 474 00:33:07,552 --> 00:33:09,520 your school has a range. 475 00:33:09,554 --> 00:33:12,490 See what they engage with because whatever they're going 476 00:33:12,523 --> 00:33:17,395 to engage with and continue with, that's the best instrument for them. 477 00:33:17,428 --> 00:33:22,967 For me, irrespective of whatever we have in our research findings, that to me 478 00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:26,738 is the perspective I will always take. 479 00:33:26,771 --> 00:33:27,572 Yeah. 480 00:33:27,572 --> 00:33:32,043 Did you hear of this study in Melbourne, by the way, speaking of Australia, 481 00:33:32,076 --> 00:33:37,548 with the Melbourne University, and they're paired with the Conservatory, 482 00:33:37,582 --> 00:33:43,388 and they're also paired with someone who's an organologist. 483 00:33:43,421 --> 00:33:49,861 So someone who study the instruments themselves, and they have improved, 484 00:33:49,894 --> 00:33:56,100 or at least they constantly improve the use of instruments 485 00:33:56,134 --> 00:33:59,470 for musicians with disabilities. 486 00:33:59,504 --> 00:34:02,974 I don't know if they did a study about hearing. 487 00:34:03,007 --> 00:34:04,609 That's a question I have. 488 00:34:04,642 --> 00:34:07,578 Yeah, I'm not so familiar with that. 489 00:34:07,612 --> 00:34:09,680 Historically, there was some really interesting stuff 490 00:34:09,714 --> 00:34:11,783 coming out of Melbourne. 491 00:34:11,883 --> 00:34:15,386 They were doing, for example, they got a... 492 00:34:15,386 --> 00:34:18,222 They wanted to develop some concerts 493 00:34:18,222 --> 00:34:21,225 for cochlear implant users, for example. 494 00:34:21,259 --> 00:34:26,230 They did a lot of work with audiologists and individuals with lived experience, 495 00:34:26,264 --> 00:34:30,101 and then pairing them with composers, 496 00:34:30,134 --> 00:34:33,771 and basically looking at how there is 497 00:34:33,805 --> 00:34:37,208 going to be a difference in hearing. 498 00:34:37,208 --> 00:34:42,580 So you want to tailor the sound for someone with a cochlear implant. 499 00:34:42,680 --> 00:34:46,751 And a lot of work has been done on that actually, where cognitive implant users 500 00:34:46,784 --> 00:34:49,487 have a preference for the vocal track. 501 00:34:49,487 --> 00:34:53,658 They want the vocal track to be maybe three decibels louder, just a little bit 502 00:34:53,691 --> 00:34:58,329 louder than a mainstream mix, just to be able to hear the vocals and the lyrics 503 00:34:58,362 --> 00:35:00,832 and the melody just a little bit more. 504 00:35:00,865 --> 00:35:04,769 So these are some interesting things that are being done. 505 00:35:04,769 --> 00:35:11,075 There's also a deaf musician advocate 506 00:35:11,108 --> 00:35:14,645 in Australia called Asphyxia. 507 00:35:14,645 --> 00:35:22,286 They developed a program called Amplio, where it's looking at how 508 00:35:22,286 --> 00:35:27,024 some of the song composition and the song mix 509 00:35:27,058 --> 00:35:32,330 can be adjusted for a deaf and hard-of-hearing population. 510 00:35:32,330 --> 00:35:36,000 I think there's a lot of interesting work being done in this space. 511 00:35:36,167 --> 00:35:39,103 I have a question for you as a musician. 512 00:35:39,137 --> 00:35:46,878 All this research, how did it affect your perception of music as a musician? 513 00:35:46,911 --> 00:35:51,916 I think it made me realize the multisensory nature, number one. 514 00:35:51,949 --> 00:35:57,588 I think before becoming a researcher, I think I also had that bias where it's like, 515 00:35:57,588 --> 00:36:01,559 Oh, it's It's all about my ear, it's all about the hearing. 516 00:36:01,559 --> 00:36:05,863 But when I really took a lot of time to reflect on it, it's like, no, 517 00:36:05,897 --> 00:36:07,331 there's so much more to it. 518 00:36:07,331 --> 00:36:12,570 I think that perspective, it just broadens the possibility 519 00:36:12,570 --> 00:36:16,040 of what music can be and what music can mean. 520 00:36:16,073 --> 00:36:21,112 So to me, it's just expanded my scope of, I guess, musical engagement 521 00:36:21,112 --> 00:36:22,980 and musical practice. 522 00:36:23,014 --> 00:36:25,917 On the other hand, because I'm so busy as a researcher now, 523 00:36:25,917 --> 00:36:28,853 I've lost my calluses on my fingers. 524 00:36:28,886 --> 00:36:32,290 I actually don't have enough time to play. 525 00:36:32,290 --> 00:36:37,628 I do a lot more research and a lot more listening to music 526 00:36:37,628 --> 00:36:40,565 than I do getting to play music. 527 00:36:40,598 --> 00:36:45,303 But to be fair, I guess, I think there are - I would probably 528 00:36:45,336 --> 00:36:48,472 prefer listening to other musicians than listen to myself anyway. 529 00:36:48,506 --> 00:36:50,741 I'm comfortable with that. 530 00:36:50,775 --> 00:36:56,480 I think we all have our specialties, and I'm a better researcher 531 00:36:56,514 --> 00:37:00,217 than I am a musician. 532 00:37:00,384 --> 00:37:07,291 What does it mean for you to work in that research environment where 533 00:37:07,325 --> 00:37:12,630 you promote disability culture and you work about accessibility in the arts? 534 00:37:12,663 --> 00:37:14,765 What does it mean for you? 535 00:37:14,765 --> 00:37:17,768 For me, it's something that, 536 00:37:17,768 --> 00:37:20,104 number one, I'm deeply passionate about. 537 00:37:20,137 --> 00:37:23,708 That's my selfish perspective. I'm doing this because I love it. 538 00:37:23,708 --> 00:37:24,942 You know... 539 00:37:24,942 --> 00:37:30,181 But I also want my passion 540 00:37:30,214 --> 00:37:33,317 and my research interest to be reflected 541 00:37:33,351 --> 00:37:35,353 and to have application. 542 00:37:35,386 --> 00:37:37,255 That, to me is also fundamentally important. 543 00:37:37,288 --> 00:37:40,224 I'm not a theoretical researcher. 544 00:37:40,257 --> 00:37:44,328 What I do has to be empirically grounded, and it has to have 545 00:37:44,328 --> 00:37:47,231 fundamentally benefit for the community. 546 00:37:47,264 --> 00:37:50,735 So that's why it's really important that I do a lot of engagement work 547 00:37:50,735 --> 00:37:53,471 with, for example, the parents of deaf children. 548 00:37:53,504 --> 00:37:59,176 I like to give a lot of talks at conferences or workshops 549 00:37:59,210 --> 00:38:03,280 where it is really important that I present this work. 550 00:38:03,314 --> 00:38:08,319 I want to see music and deafness taken really seriously 551 00:38:08,352 --> 00:38:09,920 and for it to be accessible. 552 00:38:09,920 --> 00:38:13,024 And for it to be accessible throughout the world 553 00:38:13,024 --> 00:38:19,330 and from the start through the finish, from kids all the way to older adults. 554 00:38:19,330 --> 00:38:21,966 I think there are benefits throughout all. 555 00:38:21,999 --> 00:38:25,803 And a lot of my research really spans that as well. 556 00:38:25,836 --> 00:38:29,240 So I've spoken a little bit about the pediatric work, a little bit of work 557 00:38:29,273 --> 00:38:32,743 from my PhD candidate, and also some of 558 00:38:32,777 --> 00:38:35,813 the work that I'm doing going forward 559 00:38:35,813 --> 00:38:41,252 is really centred around now choir singing. 560 00:38:41,285 --> 00:38:43,988 So some of my most recent work, 561 00:38:44,021 --> 00:38:48,659 we are looking at projects with SingWell. 562 00:38:48,693 --> 00:38:53,864 The SingWell Project is housed at Toronto Metropolitan University 563 00:38:53,898 --> 00:38:59,270 and is co-directed by Professor Frank Russo and Dr. Arla Good. 564 00:38:59,270 --> 00:39:03,641 And it's really about generating and examining the benefits 565 00:39:03,674 --> 00:39:10,047 of group singing for populations which have some communication disorder. 566 00:39:10,047 --> 00:39:16,587 This can be anything from aphasia, Alzheimer's, 567 00:39:16,587 --> 00:39:19,256 and in my case, hearing loss. 568 00:39:19,623 --> 00:39:26,764 So I'm leading a multi-site study where we are going to examine 12 weeks 569 00:39:26,797 --> 00:39:30,401 of choir singing in older adults. 570 00:39:30,401 --> 00:39:35,539 And specifically, these now are older adults with what we 571 00:39:35,573 --> 00:39:38,709 classify as unaddressed hearing loss. 572 00:39:38,743 --> 00:39:42,446 So these are older adults who typically through aging, 573 00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:45,549 their hearing drops off a little bit. 574 00:39:45,583 --> 00:39:50,488 And the sensible thing to do for most of these individuals would be 575 00:39:50,488 --> 00:39:54,391 see an audiologist and consider whether or not they're going 576 00:39:54,391 --> 00:39:58,696 to get benefit from a hearing aid, because in most cases they will. 577 00:39:59,063 --> 00:40:04,869 But there is a lot of stigma attached to assistive listening devices. 578 00:40:04,902 --> 00:40:11,709 And in about 70 % of the cases where they would likely benefit from a hearing aid, 579 00:40:12,009 --> 00:40:16,046 these adults actually just don't a hearing aid, or they might have a hearing 580 00:40:16,080 --> 00:40:18,149 aid and it's just in the bedside table. 581 00:40:18,149 --> 00:40:20,251 Very, very, very common. 582 00:40:20,251 --> 00:40:24,388 And the stigma is incredibly powerful. 583 00:40:25,222 --> 00:40:28,392 But it's really interesting because when I've spoken to 584 00:40:28,392 --> 00:40:31,595 some of my audiologist colleagues. 585 00:40:31,629 --> 00:40:37,501 This is the anecdote I always like to use, where this older gentleman turns up. 586 00:40:37,535 --> 00:40:42,306 He's got spectacles, he's got white hair, he's got a walking stick, 587 00:40:42,339 --> 00:40:46,377 he's got a bit of a hunch, and comes into the audiologist 588 00:40:46,410 --> 00:40:52,316 appointment, and subsequently told that he would benefit from a hearing aid. 589 00:40:52,349 --> 00:40:57,855 But he refuses because he doesn't want to look old. 590 00:40:57,855 --> 00:41:00,357 You know... (Laughs.) 591 00:41:00,357 --> 00:41:04,028 And that is often a rationale that's used. 592 00:41:04,028 --> 00:41:06,430 And it's like, okay, that's an interesting perspective, 593 00:41:06,430 --> 00:41:08,866 given everything else that we can see. 594 00:41:08,899 --> 00:41:12,570 But that's how strong this stigma is. 595 00:41:12,603 --> 00:41:19,844 It is often attached with a lot of these ageist, ableist perspectives. 596 00:41:19,877 --> 00:41:26,483 So really for us, actually, one of the most interesting things is, well, 597 00:41:26,517 --> 00:41:31,922 on one hand, I've already found that music training seems to benefit children 598 00:41:31,922 --> 00:41:33,858 who are deaf and hard of hearing. 599 00:41:33,891 --> 00:41:37,661 Now we want to know, can it apply to an older population? 600 00:41:37,695 --> 00:41:43,267 And we are trying to target now, specifically the group that is, 601 00:41:43,267 --> 00:41:47,371 I suppose, the largest cohort of people who are deaf and hard of hearing 602 00:41:47,371 --> 00:41:51,442 are those who actually just don't do anything about their hearing loss. 603 00:41:51,442 --> 00:41:59,049 That's our current research direction. 604 00:41:59,149 --> 00:42:00,751 Very interesting. 605 00:42:00,784 --> 00:42:04,021 For me, it's really fascinating how 606 00:42:04,021 --> 00:42:07,525 a community of musicians or singers or 607 00:42:07,525 --> 00:42:10,594 the community leads to something different. 608 00:42:10,628 --> 00:42:17,401 If you take the person, him or herself, and you talk about the benefits 609 00:42:17,434 --> 00:42:22,373 of having a hearing aid or maybe how it will impact the musicianship 610 00:42:22,406 --> 00:42:28,312 or how it will impact the way they will feel in the society and hear better. 611 00:42:28,345 --> 00:42:33,550 It's like, Yeah, but I will feel old if I wear it. 612 00:42:33,584 --> 00:42:38,389 Then if you bring all these people together in a choir and you do 613 00:42:38,389 --> 00:42:42,793 an experiment and they all wear hearing aids, and it doesn't matter anymore 614 00:42:42,793 --> 00:42:47,031 because they see that, Okay, if this guy is doing it, maybe 615 00:42:47,031 --> 00:42:49,533 he looks older than me, I'm going to do it too. 616 00:42:49,533 --> 00:42:50,868 Yes. 617 00:42:50,868 --> 00:42:53,337 Actually I think... 618 00:42:53,337 --> 00:42:55,205 The examination of stigma is 619 00:42:55,205 --> 00:42:59,109 another facet of the research that I do. 620 00:42:59,109 --> 00:43:01,645 And one of the things that I set up in Australia 621 00:43:01,645 --> 00:43:06,483 was a science workshop specifically for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. 622 00:43:06,517 --> 00:43:12,089 It was exactly this problem where because these children are mainstream-educating, 623 00:43:12,089 --> 00:43:15,292 they are often the only deaf and hard-of-hearing child, maybe 624 00:43:15,292 --> 00:43:20,297 in their class, maybe in their whole cohort, maybe in the whole school. 625 00:43:20,331 --> 00:43:22,533 And when they come to these workshops, which are 626 00:43:22,533 --> 00:43:25,269 designed specifically for deaf and hard-of-hearing kids, 627 00:43:25,269 --> 00:43:27,404 a lot of the children have often come up to me, 628 00:43:27,404 --> 00:43:30,207 and they've just looked at me, it's like, This is just so cool. 629 00:43:30,240 --> 00:43:34,311 I've just actually never met another deaf kid. 630 00:43:34,345 --> 00:43:35,746 And they often write. 631 00:43:35,746 --> 00:43:39,683 They write to us and they'll be like, Oh, it's so cool that everyone here 632 00:43:39,683 --> 00:43:40,951 just gets it about deafness. 633 00:43:40,985 --> 00:43:44,688 So I don't have to just constantly explain to my teacher. 634 00:43:44,688 --> 00:43:48,726 Like, okay, these are my hearing aids, 635 00:43:48,726 --> 00:43:52,229 and I'm going to connect my radio frequency device. 636 00:43:52,262 --> 00:43:57,568 I'm going to put something on a little lanyard on you so that I can hear you. 637 00:43:57,568 --> 00:44:01,205 Please make sure that you switch it off when you go to the washroom. (Laughs.) 638 00:44:01,205 --> 00:44:04,375 All of these little things that 639 00:44:04,375 --> 00:44:08,078 it can easily slip your mind. 640 00:44:08,112 --> 00:44:10,381 But we provide... 641 00:44:10,381 --> 00:44:12,316 We have assistive listening devices. 642 00:44:12,349 --> 00:44:15,085 We have deaf awareness training for all of our educators. 643 00:44:15,085 --> 00:44:16,286 Everything is captioned. 644 00:44:16,320 --> 00:44:18,522 Everything is provided also in... 645 00:44:18,555 --> 00:44:23,394 We have written handouts for all of the experiments. 646 00:44:23,427 --> 00:44:28,799 And then we also remove any science experiment 647 00:44:28,832 --> 00:44:34,405 that's going to be maybe very loud or very reliant on hearing, for example. 648 00:44:34,438 --> 00:44:39,610 There are lots of ways in which we can engage, as you say, with the community, 649 00:44:39,610 --> 00:44:45,482 and fundamentally, bringing these kids together, normalizing their deafness and 650 00:44:45,516 --> 00:44:49,787 for them to meet a peer support group. 651 00:44:49,820 --> 00:44:53,357 When will that happen, this SingWell 12 weeks? 652 00:44:53,390 --> 00:44:57,127 The SingWell will be kicking off at the end of winter, 653 00:44:57,127 --> 00:45:00,364 so the start of spring next year. 654 00:45:00,397 --> 00:45:02,366 It's a big multi-site project. 655 00:45:02,399 --> 00:45:05,936 We have seven sites around the world. 656 00:45:05,969 --> 00:45:07,871 We have partners in Canada, 657 00:45:07,905 --> 00:45:13,944 in the USA, in Germany, in the UK, 658 00:45:13,977 --> 00:45:18,048 in Australia and in the Netherlands. 659 00:45:18,048 --> 00:45:25,122 We got lots of partners, and hopefully - we have our protocol paper published, 660 00:45:25,155 --> 00:45:31,328 and we will hopefully have the full paper published in two years time, something like that. 661 00:45:32,763 --> 00:45:35,265 It's fascinating. 662 00:45:35,299 --> 00:45:40,838 It's a good segue to the last question, which is about people 663 00:45:40,871 --> 00:45:47,711 who might have motivated you, helped you, who were important in your career. 664 00:45:47,744 --> 00:45:52,950 In all this research you've done, you've probably met a lot of different people 665 00:45:52,950 --> 00:45:59,890 who maybe, I don't like the term inspired you, but sometimes it's the case. 666 00:45:59,890 --> 00:46:05,996 I was thinking, if you had one or two people or maybe more to name, 667 00:46:06,029 --> 00:46:08,031 who would it be and why? 668 00:46:08,065 --> 00:46:14,037 I have to give a shout out, firstly, to my PhD supervisors from five years ago. 669 00:46:14,071 --> 00:46:20,544 Catherine McMahon, a real expert in the audiology world. 670 00:46:20,577 --> 00:46:27,184 Valerie Looi, who is an expert also in cochlear implant listening 671 00:46:27,217 --> 00:46:28,452 and also in music. 672 00:46:28,452 --> 00:46:35,325 She herself is a music therapist, and she's done a lot of work looking at 673 00:46:35,325 --> 00:46:37,594 this idea of music appreciation. 674 00:46:37,628 --> 00:46:40,731 And I just wanted to touch on it a little bit because we've been talking 675 00:46:40,764 --> 00:46:43,867 about hearing capacities and the ability to listen. 676 00:46:43,901 --> 00:46:48,505 But the idea of music appreciation is that it doesn't necessarily matter 677 00:46:48,505 --> 00:46:51,642 how accurate you are at perceiving music. 678 00:46:51,675 --> 00:46:55,412 You can still enjoy and appreciate music irrespective of that. 679 00:46:55,412 --> 00:46:57,414 And I think that's going to be very true. 680 00:46:57,447 --> 00:47:01,018 I think musicians, for example, they might listen to an orchestra and they can 681 00:47:01,051 --> 00:47:06,089 pick out all these maybe individual notes coming out of a single player. 682 00:47:06,089 --> 00:47:09,026 But for other people, they're just going to listen to it maybe 683 00:47:09,026 --> 00:47:10,761 a little bit more holistically. 684 00:47:10,794 --> 00:47:14,064 And it doesn't really matter that you can tell what scale 685 00:47:14,097 --> 00:47:17,034 they're playing or what notes they're playing, you can still enjoy it. 686 00:47:17,067 --> 00:47:18,468 You can still appreciate it. 687 00:47:18,502 --> 00:47:21,538 And I think that's a very useful model for us to use, particularly 688 00:47:21,572 --> 00:47:26,310 when it comes to deaf and hard of hearing musical appreciation. 689 00:47:26,343 --> 00:47:32,216 A shout out also to Bill Thompson, an emiratist professor who is one 690 00:47:32,249 --> 00:47:35,586 of the leaders in music psychology. 691 00:47:35,619 --> 00:47:40,858 They were all really instrumental in helping shape who I am now. 692 00:47:41,225 --> 00:47:44,394 A little bit more recently, 693 00:47:44,428 --> 00:47:49,166 I've been inspired by also my PhD candidate, 694 00:47:49,166 --> 00:47:52,302 Felicity Bleckly, who's doing some really amazing work. 695 00:47:52,336 --> 00:47:58,108 And I think it really highlights the power of having that lived experience 696 00:47:58,108 --> 00:48:01,445 when it comes to leading these projects. 697 00:48:01,478 --> 00:48:06,483 There are certain ways of how she's tackling the project. 698 00:48:06,483 --> 00:48:08,252 This is very different to how I would have done it. 699 00:48:08,252 --> 00:48:13,690 And I think it's really important, number one, that I celebrate this perspective 700 00:48:13,690 --> 00:48:18,562 And I'm so appreciative that I get to work and supervise Felicity as well. 701 00:48:18,595 --> 00:48:21,932 I'm really excited to see her become a doctor in the next few years 702 00:48:21,965 --> 00:48:26,003 and excited to see all of these outputs and how it can have 703 00:48:26,003 --> 00:48:28,739 some impact in the next few years, too. 704 00:48:29,539 --> 00:48:34,845 In Toronto, I was really fortunate enough to meet Rory McLeod, 705 00:48:34,878 --> 00:48:40,951 who is, I believe, the founder maybe, or CEO of Xenia Concerts. 706 00:48:40,984 --> 00:48:46,089 And it was really my first experience being able to appreciate or even just 707 00:48:46,089 --> 00:48:53,196 experience, to begin with, these casual, relaxed listening experiences. 708 00:48:53,230 --> 00:48:56,300 It was just so different to me because I've always been someone 709 00:48:56,333 --> 00:49:01,438 who's always gone to gigs, whether it's a big orchestra piece in a fancy opera 710 00:49:01,471 --> 00:49:06,510 to maybe me just playing some rock and roll music in a dingy pub. 711 00:49:06,543 --> 00:49:07,978 I've always appreciated all of these. 712 00:49:08,011 --> 00:49:12,149 But I think what's really interesting is that culturally, 713 00:49:12,149 --> 00:49:15,652 we do have certain expectations of what a concert and what a gig is. 714 00:49:15,652 --> 00:49:17,821 And culturally, these things are not... 715 00:49:17,854 --> 00:49:22,726 They're transmitted very loosely, and we just somehow know how 716 00:49:22,726 --> 00:49:26,430 an opera is going to operate, for example. 717 00:49:26,463 --> 00:49:29,499 But I think this very formalization, 718 00:49:29,499 --> 00:49:34,004 this formal approach or these expectations are also 719 00:49:34,037 --> 00:49:40,277 just not in line with when we think about disability and neurodivergent. 720 00:49:40,310 --> 00:49:43,046 It's just fundamentally not very compatible. 721 00:49:43,080 --> 00:49:49,786 They are so structured for a normative person. 722 00:49:49,820 --> 00:49:54,992 For me, music is just not normative to begin with. 723 00:49:55,025 --> 00:50:01,932 Why are we trying to scaffold it into this theme? 724 00:50:01,965 --> 00:50:08,739 Actually, I want to just have a brief segue into models. 725 00:50:08,772 --> 00:50:11,375 I think we're all probably very familiar with the medical model, 726 00:50:11,408 --> 00:50:13,810 which is very deficit-heavy. 727 00:50:13,810 --> 00:50:18,782 And then I think a lot more research is moving towards the biopsychosocial 728 00:50:18,815 --> 00:50:23,920 model, where we have a much more holistic perspective of these things, where 729 00:50:23,954 --> 00:50:26,723 there is nothing really inherently wrong with any individual. 730 00:50:26,723 --> 00:50:29,526 It's really based on what's happening in maybe the broader community 731 00:50:29,559 --> 00:50:31,461 and how we structure these things. 732 00:50:31,928 --> 00:50:36,533 Another model that one of the research groups that I've been working with 733 00:50:36,733 --> 00:50:42,339 complements this, and we call it the possibility model, or rather we're 734 00:50:42,372 --> 00:50:45,242 borrowing this idea of possibility model. 735 00:50:45,275 --> 00:50:50,347 And we're borrowing it from feminist theory and from 736 00:50:50,380 --> 00:50:52,449 queer gender theory as well. 737 00:50:52,449 --> 00:50:56,720 And I just wanted to bring this in because I think it's a nice little segue. 738 00:50:56,753 --> 00:51:00,824 And it really comes out from... Strangely enough, it was just like 739 00:51:00,857 --> 00:51:03,560 a Hollywood interview 740 00:51:03,560 --> 00:51:07,931 with a transgender actor, Laverne Cox, who is one of 741 00:51:07,964 --> 00:51:11,768 the stars from Orange is the New Black. 742 00:51:11,768 --> 00:51:17,007 And she was asked in an interview, She's like, Oh, how do you 743 00:51:17,040 --> 00:51:21,745 feel about being this transgender actor role model now that you've made it big? 744 00:51:21,778 --> 00:51:24,181 And this was her response here. 745 00:51:24,981 --> 00:51:30,086 "I would never be so arrogant to think that someone should model their life after me. 746 00:51:30,086 --> 00:51:35,125 But the idea of possibility, the idea that I get to live my dreams out in public, 747 00:51:35,125 --> 00:51:38,628 hopefully will show to other folks that it's possible. 748 00:51:38,662 --> 00:51:43,066 So I prefer the term possibility model to role model." 749 00:51:43,099 --> 00:51:47,571 And I've really taken this on in a lot of the research that I do now. 750 00:51:47,604 --> 00:51:52,042 And one of the other research projects that I'm a part of 751 00:51:52,609 --> 00:51:58,882 is broadly called deafnesses, so a pluralization of deafness. 752 00:51:58,915 --> 00:52:03,653 And here, again, we're trying to have a more spectral 753 00:52:03,653 --> 00:52:06,456 spectrum approach to deafness. 754 00:52:06,656 --> 00:52:11,928 And by that, we actually think this has significant implications when 755 00:52:11,928 --> 00:52:14,731 it comes to the treatment of deafness. 756 00:52:14,731 --> 00:52:21,571 So the standard model of care, for example, if you are identified as having 757 00:52:21,605 --> 00:52:26,009 a prelingal deafness from newborn hearing screening, you're then either recommended 758 00:52:26,009 --> 00:52:30,680 hearing aids or cochlear implants in the first instance to your family. 759 00:52:30,714 --> 00:52:34,584 Our question is, why is that? 760 00:52:34,618 --> 00:52:38,722 Why has that become the stereotypical role model approach? 761 00:52:38,755 --> 00:52:44,861 That is the first thing that the clinician or even the general public mind goes to. 762 00:52:44,895 --> 00:52:50,133 But to the detriment to things such as augmented communication 763 00:52:50,133 --> 00:52:52,068 or things like sign language. 764 00:52:52,102 --> 00:52:54,671 And we know this, we have the stats to back this up. 765 00:52:54,671 --> 00:53:01,545 Like Australian sign language, Auslan is is decreasing, 766 00:53:02,212 --> 00:53:05,282 and cochlear implantation is increasing. 767 00:53:05,315 --> 00:53:07,551 So there's a clear relationship here. 768 00:53:07,584 --> 00:53:13,790 But we feel like it's a bit uncomfortable if that becomes your stereotypical 769 00:53:13,790 --> 00:53:17,360 role model approach, where it's like, okay, if you have a deafness, 770 00:53:17,394 --> 00:53:19,663 you become a cochlear implant user. 771 00:53:19,696 --> 00:53:23,333 For us, it's a little bit more sensible. Why don't we consider the breadth? 772 00:53:23,333 --> 00:53:27,437 And maybe we can have a bi-modal approach where you can also have 773 00:53:27,437 --> 00:53:31,508 a cochlear implant, but you can also have sign language, too. 774 00:53:31,541 --> 00:53:35,946 We don't want to really force anyone down this specific part. 775 00:53:35,979 --> 00:53:40,350 And so, again, this idea of possibility model, I think, really 776 00:53:40,350 --> 00:53:47,224 has imparted itself upon me in almost every way that I think about life 777 00:53:47,257 --> 00:53:48,992 and think about research. 778 00:53:49,025 --> 00:53:53,663 So again, coming back to Xenia, I think, again, it's this idea of 779 00:53:53,663 --> 00:53:55,899 really embracing the possibility model. 780 00:53:56,099 --> 00:54:00,604 When you go to a gig, there's not necessarily just one way 781 00:54:00,637 --> 00:54:02,505 in which you can appreciate it. 782 00:54:02,539 --> 00:54:08,545 And taking this spectral approach, we need to be not just accommodating 783 00:54:08,578 --> 00:54:12,282 of everyone, but really just... 784 00:54:12,349 --> 00:54:16,419 It's that full acceptance and full wanting 785 00:54:16,453 --> 00:54:21,491 to have maximum flourishing, almost. 786 00:54:21,524 --> 00:54:25,428 We want to really maximize the opportunity and the engagement. 787 00:54:25,462 --> 00:54:32,002 And I really love that Xenia concert model, where we are, to some extent, 788 00:54:32,035 --> 00:54:34,938 deconstructing what it means to have a concert. 789 00:54:34,971 --> 00:54:36,072 And I love that. 790 00:54:36,106 --> 00:54:41,811 As someone who really enjoys the work of John Cage, where you can really 791 00:54:41,811 --> 00:54:47,984 go outside the bounds of what music should be, I'm all for that. 792 00:54:48,652 --> 00:54:54,724 And the very last person I want to have a quick shout out to is Ben Brown, 793 00:54:54,758 --> 00:55:00,130 who is a deaf percussionist, and I was fortunate to meet him 794 00:55:00,130 --> 00:55:03,733 in Ottawa maybe two years ago. 795 00:55:04,334 --> 00:55:08,505 And he was running a workshop, almost... 796 00:55:08,505 --> 00:55:12,809 It was almost this philosophical way of listening. 797 00:55:12,909 --> 00:55:16,146 And I just really appreciated his approach. 798 00:55:16,146 --> 00:55:21,451 You can imagine, I've been engaged in listening, and I'm a musician, 799 00:55:21,484 --> 00:55:26,089 someone who studies music psychology, someone who is really 800 00:55:26,089 --> 00:55:28,158 fundamentally engaged with this. 801 00:55:28,191 --> 00:55:31,361 And yet some of the things he was talking about was really new 802 00:55:31,361 --> 00:55:34,631 and really quite mind-blowing, mind-expanding. 803 00:55:34,664 --> 00:55:40,503 And I appreciated how he was able to introduce me, I suppose, 804 00:55:40,537 --> 00:55:43,406 to new ways of listening. 805 00:55:43,406 --> 00:55:47,544 And That, to me, again, is really falling within everything that I said so far, 806 00:55:47,577 --> 00:55:52,482 this idea of this possibility model, these new ways of interpreting sound, 807 00:55:52,515 --> 00:55:57,353 pairing that with vision, pairing that with tactile touch. 808 00:55:57,387 --> 00:56:02,892 I think, again, coming back to this idea of music as multisensory, hopefully, 809 00:56:02,892 --> 00:56:07,664 I've done a sufficient job in tying it all together right at the end. 810 00:56:07,697 --> 00:56:09,933 Well, thank you so much. 811 00:56:09,933 --> 00:56:13,937 Good luck with everything that is happening right now 812 00:56:13,970 --> 00:56:20,276 in present and future, you have lots of work that is coming on that. 813 00:56:20,310 --> 00:56:26,549 Lots of writing, too, because all that is going to become great articles for sure. 814 00:56:26,583 --> 00:56:28,651 Thank you so much. 815 00:56:28,685 --> 00:56:34,090 I'm sure we're going to cross path again in some projects. 816 00:56:34,090 --> 00:56:38,661 I will have to find a way so that you can come visit me in Australia. 817 00:56:38,695 --> 00:56:41,498 There's lots of projects I want to do and lots of people I want to partner with, 818 00:56:41,531 --> 00:56:44,667 so we'll try and make some things happen. 819 00:56:44,701 --> 00:56:45,802 Thank you so much. 820 00:56:45,835 --> 00:56:49,005 Have a fantastic day and talk soon. 821 00:56:49,005 --> 00:56:50,073 Yeah. Thank you so much. 822 00:56:50,073 --> 00:56:51,641 Thank you for having me, Diane. 823 00:56:51,641 --> 00:56:52,976 Thank you. Bye. 824 00:56:54,544 --> 00:56:59,682 ♪ Closing theme music ♪