ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Special Educational Needs
Volume 10 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/feduc.2025.1552302
The I-Ork Project: a technological approach to inclusive music making and therapy
Provisionally accepted
- 1Music Conservatory of Brescia, Brescia, Italy
- 2Marche Polytechnic University, Ancona, Marche, Italy
- 3TeAch Music, Association for Digital Music Education, Valvestino, Italy
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
The "Inclusive Orchestra" project (I-Ork) examines the issues concerning inclusive music making and therapy from a multidisciplinary perspective, involving music technology, human-computer interaction, customized music instrument design, music therapy practices, community music making, music education and musical creativity. In particular, the project aims at promoting the creation of groups of performers composed of musicians with different abilities, including people with physical or/and cognitive impairments, as well as people with no musical background.At the current stage of the project, authors have developed various digital music instruments, experimented with music creation setups, and presented the instruments to people with various disabilities for testing. In the observational sessions, authors used the Individualized Music Therapy Assessment Profile (IMTAP) protocol to evaluate the impact of the use of the digital instruments on client behavior from the functional, emotional and musical point of view. The results show that these tools have a great capacity for participation and that they can induce positive emotions, curiosity, and encourage discovery. Authors were also able to assesshe peculiarities of each instrument in relation to the different disabilities, with short musical interactions between client and therapist.1 The Disklavier is an acoustic piano equipped with electronic sensors, which allow the movement of keys, hammers, and pedals. These respond to MIDI messages to provide an automatic performance of a music composition. 2 VOCA (Voice Output Communication Aids) are devices designed to support people with disabilities in personal communication https://www.hpft. nhs.uk/services/learning-disability-services/useful-resources/switches-for-communication/ 3 Garageband is a software for music production included in the operating systems macOS and IOS https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/GarageBand 4
Keywords: Accessible Digital Music Instruments (ADMIs), Music technology applications, Music Therapy, Inclusive music making, IMTAP protocol
Received: 27 Dec 2024; Accepted: 18 Apr 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Mandanici, Bergamino and Valente. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Marcella Mandanici, Music Conservatory of Brescia, Brescia, Italy
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.