Feeling the music - 27th September 2023

A music company is helping deaf people to experience music. Music: Not Impossible made special equipment. Deaf people can wear this equipment and feel music.

Flavia Naslausky said everyone wants to use the equipment now.

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."

There is equipment for people's wrists and ankles. It changes the sounds into vibrations. It vibrates on the skin.

Patrick Hanlon says they can match it to many different types of music.

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."

People can turn up and turn down the vibrations. It's like a volume control. These changes have different colour LED lights.

The company tested the first equipment in 2018. But now, it's better.

Jay Zimmerman writes music. He's deaf. He helped test the first equipment.

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."

In the past, deaf people used balloons to feel music in their hands. Now, they can feel music all over their bodies. Celebrity musician Pharrell is excited about the new equipment.