Surround body experience - 27th September 2023

Members of the deaf community enjoyed music at a live concert in New York. Music: Not Impossible developed a device which can be worn on the skin.

The device was designed for the deaf community. However, head of business development, Flavia Naslausky, commented that everyone wants to use it.

Flavia Naslausky: "As you know already, this was designed with and inspired by the deaf community. And along this journey, though, we realised that everybody wants to use it. This is about shared connections, shared experiences, bringing people together that otherwise wouldn't be together."

The software has come after many years of research. The wireless device is able to translate and send sound vibrations to the body without any delay. The device can also be changed to fit different music and concert genres, as one co-founder Patrick Hanlon explains.

Patrick Hanlon: "For an orchestra, I'm gonna have the violins across the chest and we're gonna put the cello and the bass elements in the back, and then we'll have some horns and stuff over the shoulders. But if I was to use it for a techno gig, it would be kick drum, snare, hats maybe on the shoulders, so it's a little bit of a different approach."

The technology has been described as a 'Surround Body Experience' as it distributes vibration to 8 areas of the body. Wearers can control the strength of the vibrations, with each level shown by a colour change in LED lights.

Jay Zimmerman's deaf and composes musical theatre music. He was involved in testing the first model of the device in 2018.

Jay Zimmerman: "It was super exciting. I was super excited because it has come a long way. Originally, it was actually wired up like I'm gonna be electrocuted. And now they're separate. So it was very, very exciting, but I still feel, you know, down the road, I'm always like, we wanna go, we wanna take it to the next level."

Before this new technology, deaf people could only enjoy concerts by holding an inflated balloon, to feel the vibrations. However, Music: Not Impossible has significantly improved this experience. The technology has got pop star Pharrell excited about the future of music.