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[Opening theme music]

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Hello, and welcome to this episode
of ArtsAbly in Conversation.

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My name is Diane Kolin.

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This series presents artists, academics,
and project leaders who dedicate their

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time and energy to a better accessibility
for people with disabilities in the arts.

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You can find more of these conversations
on our website artsably.com,

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which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com.

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[Theme music]

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Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation with 
Andre Louis, a musician from London, UK, 

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and an accessibility expert for features 
in digital audio workstations.

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You can find the resources mentioned
by Andre Louis during this episode 

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on ArtsAbly's website, in the blog section.

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Welcome to this new episode of
ArtsAbly in Conversation.

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Today, I'm with Andre Louis, who is
a musician from London, UK, and also

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an accessibility expert for features
in digital audio workstations.

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We're going to talk about that, I guess.

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I think your artist's name is Onj', right?

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That's right.

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Well, welcome, Onj', Andre.

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It's nice to be here, by the way.

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Nice to see you, too.

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I will start this episode by asking you
a bit about yourself, about your career,

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and about when you started music
and why you started music.

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Okay, so I started playing music,
apparently, when I was three years old,

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and I was given a keyboard.

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It was one of these monophonic
single-note entities.

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You couldn't do chords or anything,
but it was what we had.

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Apparently, the first thing I learned 
to play on it was a British TV theme, 

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which is called EastEnders.

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If you don't live in the UK,
you may never have heard of it.

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It's not very exciting, but apparently,
that's what I heard and learned to play.

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Then I just carried on playing
from that point forward.

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I apparently did some piano lessons in school, 
but I don't remember anything about them.

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For the majority of my life,
I would consider myself

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as a self-taught musician.

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What style are you playing
or what style did you play since?

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Yeah, I've played a lot of different
things, but mostly I work in the jazz

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and soul and RnB and reggae genres.

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Those are what I feel comfortable doing,
and Neosoul and such.

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Okay, great.
From your early studies of music,

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you also used a lot of different tools

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to help you because if I read correctly

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your biography, you're blind.

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That's right.
I am, yes.

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So how did it work for you
learning all these tools and

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music techniques for you as a musician?

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Well, looking back in the '90s,
when I was in boarding school,

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which I was for eight years,
The first experience I had

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with sequencing,
which is the act of recording multiple

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tracks into a MIDI file,
it was then anyway,

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was a Yamaha keyboard called the SQ-16.

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The school had one, and my music teacher
at the time saw that I wanted

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to compose and do composition.

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She, in her spare time, and
I'm so grateful to her for doing that,

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looked at the manual and then taught me
the basics of using this keyboard blind.

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Literally, no pun extended
because that was the only way to do it.

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I wrote a lot of stuff, just
at the weekends, just some ideas, 

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and it was my first experience with this thing.

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I had nothing like that at home, so I
could only do this while I was in school,

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but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

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I have all of those, or nearly
all of them, MIDI files

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to this day from my '90s exploits.

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I'd like to think I've improved
since then, but you got to start

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somewhere like baby pictures.

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No one wants to see them,
but you've got them anyway.

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From then, I moved on to RNC
in Hereford, Royal National College.

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I went to Worcester from 1992 until 2000.

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In 2000, I moved to Hereford,
just down the road or up the road,

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depending on which way you look at it.

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I studied music tech there as well.

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In that place, we were using CakeTalking
and JAWS, which I hate with a passion.

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I'm so glad never to have to
use it again in my lifetime.

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That's what I'm doing now.

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Hopefully anyway, he says.

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Now watch it come up that I have to.
We'll see.

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I've just doomed myself.

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But that was an experience anyway.

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I got then into Cubase.

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At that time, Cubase 3.7 was
somewhat accessible with a screen reader.

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A screen reader, if you don't know,
is the piece of software that allows

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a blind person to use a computer at all.

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These days, you will have heard of 
things like NVDA, like JAWS, 

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VoiceOver on the Mac, Orca on Linux, 
this kind of things.

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Even your phones have
a screen reader's built in.

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Then Cubase was accessible.
It's not now.

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It's changed, unfortunately,
from what I know.

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Then I moved on to a free sequencer
from a guy in the UK called James Bowden.

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He worked at Dolphin Computer Access,
and Dolphin Computer Access

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is a manufacturer of screen readers.

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But in his spare time, he
made this sequencer, and I used that

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for 13 years up until 2016.

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That brings me to present day.

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Now, I use Logic Pro
on the Mac, which is accessible.

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It's an Apple-built product,
and Apple made the screen reader

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that I use, which is VoiceOver.

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Now I compose
for myself and professionally,

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and I gig and all these things
using a MacBook Pro and Logic Pro X.

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Well, it's actually not
Logic Pro X anymore.

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It's now Logic Pro 11.2. So times change.
But yes.

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Long answer.
Sorry about that.

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No, not at all.

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I love long answers.

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Now you're also
working with some companies to test

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their accessibility features, right?

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That is true.

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I have worked
alongside Native Instruments,

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particularly Native Instruments.

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I've done product demos for
companies like Fracture Sounds

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and Spitfire Audio and things
like this on some of their products.

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In my spare time, I run my own YouTube
channel and podcast as well, actually.

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On the YouTube channel, I demonstrate 
products I like the sound of 

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that give me good feels
and inspiration, and I do a lot

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of that sort of things, and it's quite fun.

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You work with Komplete Kontrol?

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Yes, sitting right in front of me,
right here in this shot, actually.

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This is the keyboard I use
and gig with every day.

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My pride and joy.

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For those who are interested in, 

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if you go to Andre Louis' YouTube channel, 

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you will see him play exactly in the same 
setting of what we are seeing right now.

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Yes.

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I saw you play jazz, and I love that.

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Yeah, this is where I live,
this is the jazz land.

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I love all that.

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I love improvisation and soloing, and I 
compose music and all this kind of stuff.

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You're teaching also, right?

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Yeah, I teach Logic to blind students
because I wanted to give them

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some of the opportunities I've had.

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Do they come to your studio or do you
do that virtually or how do you do that?

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Well, pre-pandemic,
I always did it in person.

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Then pandemic taught me the value
of remote learning, and it saved

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a lot of time and effort
on their part and traffic.

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Now I just do it remotely.

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I would like to talk a little bit about

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some of the projects you've worked on.

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For example, I know you released 
a CD with another artist.

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Can you talk about this recent release?

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I've had a few recent releases
with a few different people.

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The first thing I released
with somebody else is my neighbor

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who lives upstairs from me.
He's a drum and bass artist called Zero T.

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He has worked with renowned producers
like Goldie from Metalheads

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and things like this.

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His back catalog is vast, spanning
the last 20, 30 years, I believe.

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Very nice guy.

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We've done a few albums together,
had a few EPs as well and some singles.

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Then another guy I worked with is a guy
called Andrew, and his name is Born74

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from Wales.

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He found me through Facebook,
and we started working together.

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We've had a couple of releases
on vinyl under the Colin Curtis

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label, so that's been quite fun.

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Yeah, I mean - 

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Zero T found you also in Instagram.

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Sorry for interrupting. Right?

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He found me on Twitter,
actually, when I was on Twitter.

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But yeah, we became fast friends.

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We worked out that we lived
in the same block because a neighbor had

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a very loud party, and it was the start
of a lifelong friendship, basically.

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If I go back to your first release
with Zero T, this one was called Kilburn?

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That's right.

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We have released the subsequent
one, which is Kilburn Park.

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I think Kilburn was
released in 2022 or '21.

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I forget.

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Time goes by so quickly.

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There's actually a great
documentary about that.

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There is.

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I was going to mention that,
but you got there.

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It's a good one.

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Can you talk about this
project a little bit?

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Because it's a huge one.

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It was very fast-release, it was...

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You worked with a lot
of collaborators on this one.

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Yeah, there's quite
a few different people.

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I haven't met all of them,
but the internet is vast 

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and allows you to do things like this.

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But because we were neighbors,
we were able to just work very quickly

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and seamlessly together,
but we didn't need to be neighbors.

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Again, the internet comes into play here.

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We actually work and still
do to this day using Dropbox.

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I never go to his house and work.

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He never comes to my house to work.

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We don't need to, even though
he's probably within throwing distance

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if I try really hard.

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Dropbox is a thing.

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We were able to turn around a lot tunes
super quickly as a result.

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That's how we've done
every subsequent release as well.

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Was it one track, one new collaborator?

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or did you also do work -

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You didn't do in person, right?

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It was... you didn't...

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We didn't need to necessarily
for that album.

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We've recorded vocalists in my living room
right here behind me to my right.

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There's a track we have done which was not
on the Kilburn EP, it was on another EP

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called Deusa, D-E-U-S-A, and the singer
was a lady called Roberta Silva.

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Because I can record in here
and produce in here, and I've got

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another microphone on the other side of
the room, we record the vocals in here.

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For that, we did need
actually to be in person.

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But for the majority of
what we do, we can work remotely.

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Yeah. I watched this documentary

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and it was very interesting because

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we can see you in action, actually,
with all the tools that are around you.

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That's very fun.

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It was really fun to do that.

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I love showing people that as blind
people, we're just as able as you.

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I think a lot of people have this
preconception, or misconception, perhaps.

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00:16:14,506 --> 00:16:18,310
It stems from probably the '80s
when things were a lot harder.

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00:16:18,344 --> 00:16:23,515
But computers are powerful enough 
to allow me to do what I do.

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00:16:23,582 --> 00:16:28,554
If you're running a studio,
I can do that job.

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00:16:28,954 --> 00:16:30,856
We were talking about that with...

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I interviewed Kemal Gorey,
who is the secretary of RAMPD.

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He's brilliant.

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He's brilliant.

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00:16:36,562 --> 00:16:40,632
We were talking
about this preconceived idea that, Okay,

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00:16:40,666 --> 00:16:46,271
because I have a visual impairment,
I cannot do a score for a movie.

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00:16:46,305 --> 00:16:49,742
He said, Well, that's completely stupid.

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00:16:49,742 --> 00:16:52,544
I have my whatever technique.

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00:16:52,578 --> 00:16:57,249
It's all fear of people of not being able to -

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It's fear, but it's also ignorance.

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There's a difference,
but it's a fine line.

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00:17:03,622 --> 00:17:06,859
You don't know what you don't
know, but don't still assume that

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00:17:06,859 --> 00:17:08,861
what you know is current.

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00:17:09,061 --> 00:17:12,364
Always ask, always research,
always find out.

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00:17:13,766 --> 00:17:17,036
Yeah, we live in this assumptions world,

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00:17:17,069 --> 00:17:21,673
unfortunately, and it's usually up to us

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00:17:21,673 --> 00:17:26,512
as disabled people to come to people
and say, Well, there is no difference.

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00:17:26,545 --> 00:17:28,247
Yeah, I think you're right, exactly.

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00:17:29,715 --> 00:17:32,084
Okay, so what about
the second project with Andrew?

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00:17:32,117 --> 00:17:33,585
What was that?

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00:17:33,619 --> 00:17:35,254
Okay, that was an interesting one.

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00:17:35,287 --> 00:17:38,190
He found me through Facebook
and he had heard my music.

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00:17:38,223 --> 00:17:41,293
I'm not 100% sure what he heard,
whether it was the collaboration

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00:17:41,326 --> 00:17:43,695
with Zero T or my own stuff.

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00:17:43,729 --> 00:17:47,032
But he came to me, he said, I need a keyboard
player on some project I'm working on.

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00:17:47,032 --> 00:17:48,233
Can you help?

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00:17:48,267 --> 00:17:52,237
I was like, Sure, just send it to me.
And he sent it to me.

235
00:17:52,438 --> 00:17:56,742
I can tell you, because he would agree
and he'll laugh, the bass was terrible.

236
00:17:56,775 --> 00:18:02,181
I was like, You can't have chords
in one key and bass in another key.

237
00:18:02,214 --> 00:18:06,185
I was polite about it, but I said,
Look, I'm going to redo these parts.

238
00:18:06,218 --> 00:18:09,321
I know you only asked me to do chords,
but I'm going to redo these parts.

239
00:18:09,354 --> 00:18:12,191
Then he had to listen and he goes,
You've done exactly what

240
00:18:12,224 --> 00:18:15,761
I wanted to hear, so would you
like to work together on things?

241
00:18:15,794 --> 00:18:17,529
It just went from there, really.

242
00:18:17,563 --> 00:18:21,867
We have this great relationship where I can 
explain to him why something doesn't work

243
00:18:21,867 --> 00:18:25,104
 in a nice way, and he'll listen 
and take that on board,

244
00:18:25,137 --> 00:18:28,040
and he's much better about it now.
We've done a lot of things since then.

245
00:18:28,073 --> 00:18:33,679
But that first track was interesting.

246
00:18:33,846 --> 00:18:35,814
It got a lot better.

247
00:18:35,914 --> 00:18:37,850
He's a great guy and we're
very good friends.

248
00:18:37,883 --> 00:18:40,686
But yeah, that first
track was interesting.

249
00:18:41,253 --> 00:18:43,055
Okay.

250
00:18:43,455 --> 00:18:46,258
What's the name of the album?

251
00:18:46,291 --> 00:18:47,893
Oh, Mind Vibrations.

252
00:18:47,926 --> 00:18:51,797
I think It was released on the

253
00:18:51,830 --> 00:18:54,833
Tru Thoughts label out of the UK, 

254
00:18:54,833 --> 00:18:58,136
which is big because they're a really big name.

255
00:18:58,170 --> 00:19:01,740
I don't know thousands about them,
but they're a big enough label that

256
00:19:01,773 --> 00:19:06,245
you'll find them having released a lot
of different artists over the years.

257
00:19:06,278 --> 00:19:11,316
Their back catalog is pretty,
pretty vast, I must say.

258
00:19:11,750 --> 00:19:18,991
I think Quantic and Moonchild and things
like this are on the Tru Thoughts label.

259
00:19:19,024 --> 00:19:20,526
They're not nobodys.

260
00:19:20,559 --> 00:19:24,096
To be released on a label
like this is just fantastic.

261
00:19:25,597 --> 00:19:30,435
In terms of projects, are you
working on something new

262
00:19:30,469 --> 00:19:32,571
right now that is in the future?

263
00:19:33,038 --> 00:19:37,776
I think we're always working on something.
I often get asked by Zero T or Andrew,

264
00:19:37,809 --> 00:19:40,045
Oh, just stick some chords
down on this or something.

265
00:19:40,078 --> 00:19:41,813
Then I just do it and I go away.

266
00:19:41,847 --> 00:19:46,018
It's in Dropbox for six months,
four months, eight months.

267
00:19:46,051 --> 00:19:47,953
I forget I've done half the things.

268
00:19:47,986 --> 00:19:51,223
The next thing I know, Oh, look,
our release is happening next week.

269
00:19:51,256 --> 00:19:54,493
I'm like, Did I play on that?
They're like, Yeah, you did.

270
00:19:54,526 --> 00:19:58,997
A lot of times it's like,
I will turn something around super quick.

271
00:19:58,997 --> 00:20:02,267
Zero T mentions this in the documentary.

272
00:20:02,301 --> 00:20:06,104
He says, Give me some chords
and he'll a way to make a cup of tea, 

273
00:20:06,104 --> 00:20:08,440
and I've done it.
[Laughs]

274
00:20:08,440 --> 00:20:09,274
I enjoy that.

275
00:20:09,308 --> 00:20:14,813
For me, working with people,
I have a zero tolerance inbox policy,

276
00:20:14,846 --> 00:20:16,715
and that's also true for music.

277
00:20:16,715 --> 00:20:21,620
If there's something I need to do,
I need to it so that it's done

278
00:20:21,653 --> 00:20:23,388
and I don't have to think about it.

279
00:20:23,422 --> 00:20:28,060
Not because I don't like it, but because
I don't want you to be waiting on me.

280
00:20:28,093 --> 00:20:32,764
I'll turn something around the same day,
preferably the same hour, if I'm capable

281
00:20:32,798 --> 00:20:34,499
of doing it and I'm not busy.

282
00:20:34,533 --> 00:20:38,003
I just believe in that kind of work ethic.

283
00:20:38,036 --> 00:20:40,539
I think it's very, very important.

284
00:20:41,273 --> 00:20:43,809
I'm going to come back to your projects.

285
00:20:43,842 --> 00:20:47,346
Are you also playing live in clubs?

286
00:20:47,346 --> 00:20:48,880
Oh, yeah.

287
00:20:48,880 --> 00:20:50,916
Even just this weekend,
I did that actually.

288
00:20:50,949 --> 00:20:54,353
I played a little in a cocktail bar
in London called MU.

289
00:20:54,353 --> 00:20:56,521
It's a little Japanese cocktail bar
in East London.

290
00:20:56,555 --> 00:20:58,824
I enjoy that quite a bit.
Good fun.

291
00:20:58,857 --> 00:21:04,296
I'm actually going to be touring Belgium
in February with a band.

292
00:21:04,329 --> 00:21:05,864
Very fun.

293
00:21:05,897 --> 00:21:07,699
Can we follow that?

294
00:21:07,699 --> 00:21:10,002
Is it announced somewhere
that we can follow?

295
00:21:10,035 --> 00:21:12,437
There's a Facebook group for the band.

296
00:21:12,437 --> 00:21:16,541
The band is called Jamtastic,
as in J-A-M, Tastic.

297
00:21:16,575 --> 00:21:19,444
You can see where we will be playing.

298
00:21:19,478 --> 00:21:23,882
There's some videos of previous gigs
that we've done and tours.

299
00:21:23,882 --> 00:21:25,117
Loads of fun.

300
00:21:25,751 --> 00:21:27,719
When is it, the tour?

301
00:21:27,719 --> 00:21:30,989
Our first gig is February the 28th.

302
00:21:31,023 --> 00:21:33,892
I think we're out there
until March the seventh.

303
00:21:33,925 --> 00:21:35,193
We have a few days.

304
00:21:35,227 --> 00:21:37,296
We're not playing every
night, I don't think.

305
00:21:37,329 --> 00:21:39,631
I don't think all the gigs
have been finalized yet either.

306
00:21:39,665 --> 00:21:44,436
But if you are in Europe and
close to or in Belgium, yeah,

307
00:21:44,436 --> 00:21:46,905
I'd love to have you come and say hello.

308
00:21:46,938 --> 00:21:49,975
Well, there will be a resource page
with this [interview], so I'm going

309
00:21:49,975 --> 00:21:54,346
We're going to share that
so that people can have a look.

310
00:21:54,379 --> 00:21:55,480
That would be amazing.

311
00:21:55,480 --> 00:21:59,851
I'm intrigued by all the equipment
that is around you.

312
00:21:59,885 --> 00:22:02,754
Can you talk about your equipment?

313
00:22:02,788 --> 00:22:05,657
Yeah, to be honest, anything
on the right-hand side of me now,

314
00:22:05,691 --> 00:22:08,894
which is possibly your left, I don't
know if the camera's flipped or not,

315
00:22:08,927 --> 00:22:10,495
but is not really in use anymore.

316
00:22:10,529 --> 00:22:14,266
This bottom device here,
which is a Roland Fantom-XR,

317
00:22:14,299 --> 00:22:19,938
is not often in use because hardware.
And Mac and hardware -

318
00:22:19,971 --> 00:22:24,142
Well, Logic and hardware, particularly -
don't play very nicely together

319
00:22:24,242 --> 00:22:30,982
because you control the sounds of the
hardware through MIDI program changes.

320
00:22:31,016 --> 00:22:34,152
A bit like dialing a phone number
over MIDI, if you will.

321
00:22:34,186 --> 00:22:38,156
But the thing is that's
not easy to set up.

322
00:22:38,156 --> 00:22:42,260
I used to use that when I was
using Windows to do all my sequencing.

323
00:22:42,294 --> 00:22:45,630
Now it just sits connected
to my Windows PC, not my Mac.

324
00:22:45,630 --> 00:22:48,200
There's a lot of sounds in there
that I would probably use more

325
00:22:48,233 --> 00:22:53,305
if I could, but I have given them up.
It's a sad thing.

326
00:22:53,338 --> 00:22:58,110
The majority of stuff that is in use still
is this keyboard in front of me and

327
00:22:58,143 --> 00:23:03,715
the Mac behind me to the right, which you
might just see far away in the distance.

328
00:23:03,715 --> 00:23:06,084
That's what actually
I'm talking to you on right now.

329
00:23:06,118 --> 00:23:09,821
There's a computer keyboard here
which is connected to my Windows PC.

330
00:23:09,821 --> 00:23:13,859
There's a computer keyboard up to here,
which is the one I use for the Mac.

331
00:23:13,892 --> 00:23:15,627
There's a mic I'm talking to you on now.

332
00:23:15,660 --> 00:23:18,096
There's another mic
far back in the corner.

333
00:23:18,130 --> 00:23:22,401
That's where my wife
sits when we do our podcast together.

334
00:23:23,001 --> 00:23:24,369
Very good. It's- 

335
00:23:24,369 --> 00:23:25,370
Oh, the mixer, of course.

336
00:23:25,403 --> 00:23:26,872
Got to have a mixer.

337
00:23:27,939 --> 00:23:31,943
All the magic happens
with Logic Pro, right?

338
00:23:31,977 --> 00:23:33,178
Yes, it does.

339
00:23:33,211 --> 00:23:36,081
Although, actually, just
recently, to the right of the mixer

340
00:23:36,114 --> 00:23:40,051
is this pad controller device here,
which is a new toy for me, 

341
00:23:40,051 --> 00:23:42,854
which I love very much, called Ableton Move.

342
00:23:42,888 --> 00:23:46,792
Ableton just recently
released this in October of '24.

343
00:23:46,825 --> 00:23:51,396
It's an accessible groove box
Really enjoyable.

344
00:23:51,396 --> 00:23:55,934
Very travel-friendly, very
cute, very small, but extremely

345
00:23:55,967 --> 00:23:57,602
accessible, and I love it.

346
00:23:58,270 --> 00:23:59,438
Very nice.

347
00:23:59,438 --> 00:24:04,309
You use Ableton software for that, right?

348
00:24:04,342 --> 00:24:06,111
Well, actually, you don't need to.

349
00:24:06,111 --> 00:24:10,582
I mean, you can, but Ableton Move itself
is a standalone groove box machine.

350
00:24:10,615 --> 00:24:15,687
It's got four tracks of audio or MIDI,
and it's got a built-in sampler,

351
00:24:15,720 --> 00:24:17,322
and it has built-in sounds as well.

352
00:24:17,355 --> 00:24:20,091
It's a very, very fun device.

353
00:24:20,792 --> 00:24:24,863
When you have a new toy
like that, how do you explore it?

354
00:24:24,896 --> 00:24:30,101
I mean, you are an accessibility expert
in all that equipment.

355
00:24:30,368 --> 00:24:35,774
Yeah, it depends on the device, but in
the case of this device, I was told that

356
00:24:35,807 --> 00:24:40,946
there was a screen reader function built
into it, which is run from a web browser.

357
00:24:40,979 --> 00:24:45,150
You visit the site of the Move -

358
00:24:45,183 --> 00:24:48,587
in the case of a browser, you go to 
move.local for example -

359
00:24:48,587 --> 00:24:52,791
and now when you get there, 
there's something

360
00:24:52,824 --> 00:24:54,526
called the Move Manager.

361
00:24:54,759 --> 00:24:59,464
This allows you to upload and download
your sets and your samples and so on.

362
00:24:59,498 --> 00:25:02,634
But if you add a different
URL to this move.local page

363
00:25:02,634 --> 00:25:07,506
and you type in /screen-reader,
It comes up with a page which uses

364
00:25:07,539 --> 00:25:10,942
Aria Live regions, which talks to 
a screen reader like your

365
00:25:10,976 --> 00:25:14,613
PC or your Mac or your phone screen
reader, and any control that you touch

366
00:25:14,646 --> 00:25:18,183
on the device gets spoken
by your normal screen reader.

367
00:25:19,351 --> 00:25:20,919
A lot of people are confused by this.

368
00:25:20,952 --> 00:25:24,022
I did a video about this, by the way,
because it's a ground-breaking piece

369
00:25:24,022 --> 00:25:26,191
of software and technology, really.

370
00:25:26,224 --> 00:25:30,595
They've never released anything quite like
it before, and I don't know of any other

371
00:25:30,595 --> 00:25:32,297
accessible Groovebox in this way at all.

372
00:25:32,330 --> 00:25:34,065
Not standalone, anyway.

373
00:25:34,099 --> 00:25:37,802
There's Machina, but you are required
to be tethered to a computer to use it.

374
00:25:37,836 --> 00:25:39,504
But this you don't need to be.

375
00:25:39,538 --> 00:25:41,139
It connects to your WiFi.

376
00:25:41,172 --> 00:25:46,511
To explore it was just getting to grips
with using the Move Manager web page and

377
00:25:46,545 --> 00:25:51,416
then learning what all the controls did
by reading the manual and talking to one

378
00:25:51,416 --> 00:25:57,656
of the Ableton people that I work with
called Adi, who's phenomenal, by the way.

379
00:25:57,956 --> 00:26:00,091
That's how I got into this whole thing.

380
00:26:00,125 --> 00:26:03,194
I was the first blind person
to actually do a demo

381
00:26:03,228 --> 00:26:06,798
about this screener stuff online.

382
00:26:06,965 --> 00:26:09,000
Also the same for Native Instruments.

383
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:13,705
When Native Instruments became accessible
in 2016, again, I was luckily able

384
00:26:13,738 --> 00:26:16,374
to get in on the ground floor,
and I was the first person to do

385
00:26:16,408 --> 00:26:19,411
a demo of that then as well.

386
00:26:19,644 --> 00:26:21,112
That's exciting.

387
00:26:21,112 --> 00:26:23,481
That's so exciting.
I love stuff like this.

388
00:26:23,481 --> 00:26:29,521
Yeah, and it shows that
really accessibility starts to be more

389
00:26:29,554 --> 00:26:34,559
and more present in our digital
tools, which we waited a long time.

390
00:26:34,593 --> 00:26:39,097
I remember Cubase because I
remember the accessibility issues

391
00:26:39,097 --> 00:26:40,665
that started to happen.

392
00:26:40,699 --> 00:26:46,404
Then this group that gathered together
and tried to make it accessible,

393
00:26:46,438 --> 00:26:48,306
but for a reason could not.

394
00:26:48,340 --> 00:26:49,307
That's right.

395
00:26:49,341 --> 00:26:50,075
Yeah.

396
00:26:50,075 --> 00:26:51,076
It shouldn't be this way.

397
00:26:51,109 --> 00:26:53,211
Everything should just work.

398
00:26:53,244 --> 00:26:56,982
But unfortunately, there are a lot
of these in-house custom libraries

399
00:26:56,982 --> 00:27:02,087
that people use that mean that a screen reader
doesn't know how to talk to them.

400
00:27:02,287 --> 00:27:06,524
That precludes us from being able
to use it, which is a shame.

401
00:27:07,292 --> 00:27:12,097
Yeah. And it's a good segue to my next question.

402
00:27:12,130 --> 00:27:17,502
In RAMPD, because we are both in RAMPD,
we are both RAMPD pro members,

403
00:27:17,535 --> 00:27:22,307
and people who follow my podcast
now know quite a lot about RAMPD

404
00:27:22,340 --> 00:27:26,011
because it's an important organization.

405
00:27:26,044 --> 00:27:32,217
We frequently
talk about what accessibility

406
00:27:32,217 --> 00:27:34,552
in the disability culture is.

407
00:27:34,586 --> 00:27:38,123
I like this question because everybody
has a different definition of 

408
00:27:38,123 --> 00:27:41,926
what it means for each artist to work in

409
00:27:41,960 --> 00:27:45,930
an environment that allows to increase

410
00:27:45,964 --> 00:27:48,666
accessibility in disability culture.

411
00:27:48,700 --> 00:27:54,105
I'm going to ask you, what does it
mean for you to work in that environment?

412
00:27:54,139 --> 00:27:58,309
In 2017, I went on tour with a band.

413
00:27:58,343 --> 00:28:00,679
The band is called Still Pan Fusion.

414
00:28:00,679 --> 00:28:06,117
That was the first time I'd ever
used a MacBook on stage with

415
00:28:06,317 --> 00:28:08,319
Logic and everything like this.

416
00:28:09,054 --> 00:28:14,092
Accessibility on that tour
meant that when we had a piece of music

417
00:28:14,125 --> 00:28:19,130
that required a sitar and I had to turn
the drone up and down and I had to know

418
00:28:19,164 --> 00:28:20,799
what track I was on to do that.

419
00:28:20,799 --> 00:28:25,470
I'd have headphones connected to my Mac
that would not go to front of house

420
00:28:25,503 --> 00:28:28,740
because no one needs to hear
screen reader blaring out of the PA.

421
00:28:28,773 --> 00:28:30,442
That's terrible.

422
00:28:30,475 --> 00:28:34,145
But what it meant was that when I would
go to the right track with this sitar on it 

423
00:28:34,145 --> 00:28:37,348
and touch one of the controls
in front of me here, these eight knobs.

424
00:28:37,382 --> 00:28:40,485
One of them was the tone volume -
the drone volume, sorry.

425
00:28:40,485 --> 00:28:44,823
I turn up the drone volume, I play my bit,
the whole band comes in after I'm done,

426
00:28:44,856 --> 00:28:48,226
I turn it down, I then go to the piano track 
because that's where I'm supposed to be, 

427
00:28:48,226 --> 00:28:53,531
and then I begin to play.
So accessibility means that I can do this

428
00:28:53,565 --> 00:28:57,268
completely blind, while still knowing 
that I'm in the right place, 

429
00:28:57,268 --> 00:28:59,771
doing the right thing
and not turning the wrong knob.

430
00:28:59,804 --> 00:29:03,108
Because you can't do this thing where

431
00:29:03,108 --> 00:29:05,577
you gently tap a key...
[Playing the piano]

432
00:29:05,610 --> 00:29:07,045
Okay, that's the wrong sound.
[Playing the piano]

433
00:29:07,045 --> 00:29:08,146
That's the wrong sound.

434
00:29:08,179 --> 00:29:09,981
You need to know exactly where you are.

435
00:29:10,014 --> 00:29:13,718
Hearing the speech tell me
the track I'm on, do the right thing,

436
00:29:13,718 --> 00:29:17,756
play the right thing, turn it
down and carry on, that's professional.

437
00:29:17,756 --> 00:29:23,061
Unprofessional is what I just showed you
because no one should have to hear that.

438
00:29:23,595 --> 00:29:25,563
That's partly what
accessibility means to me.

439
00:29:25,597 --> 00:29:30,201
It means having the same access
and understanding and usability 

440
00:29:30,201 --> 00:29:33,171
that my sighted counterparts 
do in this industry.

441
00:29:33,204 --> 00:29:40,378
But what it also means is working
with people that appreciate me for me and

442
00:29:40,411 --> 00:29:44,549
make my life easy and look out for me.

443
00:29:44,582 --> 00:29:46,417
This band was like that.

444
00:29:46,451 --> 00:29:50,622
They would make sure that I was safe
and sat down before things were unpacked

445
00:29:50,655 --> 00:29:54,792
so that I wasn't in the way or going
to be in the way, because accessibility

446
00:29:54,826 --> 00:29:57,428
is not just a one-way street.

447
00:29:57,462 --> 00:30:00,231
Accessibility is good for everybody.

448
00:30:00,265 --> 00:30:04,402
If the blind guy who could be standing
around, not necessarily meaning to

449
00:30:04,435 --> 00:30:08,606
be standing around, gets in the way,
it's better he sat down, and then when

450
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:12,510
everybody's ready, we'll get them back
on stage and we'll do the thing, right?

451
00:30:12,510 --> 00:30:12,944
Yeah.

452
00:30:12,977 --> 00:30:16,181
Again, long-winded answer,
but accessibility to me

453
00:30:16,214 --> 00:30:19,817
is more than just the name.

454
00:30:19,884 --> 00:30:24,022
It's a way of life, and I think that's
the best way I can put it.

455
00:30:24,055 --> 00:30:27,158
It's a way of life.

456
00:30:27,458 --> 00:30:31,262
That's a good way to put it.

457
00:30:31,529 --> 00:30:37,135
I remember I was talking with Lachi
a few years ago, actually,

458
00:30:37,135 --> 00:30:39,504
it was just before RAMPD started.

459
00:30:39,537 --> 00:30:44,475
She was telling me her story
about when she started to form a band,

460
00:30:44,509 --> 00:30:49,881
and most of the band consisted
of visually impaired, lots

461
00:30:49,914 --> 00:30:52,817
of different visually impaired people.

462
00:30:52,851 --> 00:30:57,589
They were invited to play
in clubs, I think.

463
00:30:57,622 --> 00:31:03,094
Of course, there was so much improvement

464
00:31:03,127 --> 00:31:06,531
that could be made in this club where, 
of course, you needed to

465
00:31:06,531 --> 00:31:12,337
have stairs or a huge step 
to go to the stage

466
00:31:12,370 --> 00:31:18,977
that you could probably not detect
if someone is not pointing it out.

467
00:31:19,010 --> 00:31:24,282
Then the fact that it was dark

468
00:31:24,282 --> 00:31:28,920
because she has a vision that you really

469
00:31:28,920 --> 00:31:34,959
need to have some light for her to
be able to feel what is happening around.

470
00:31:34,959 --> 00:31:37,061
There was no help.

471
00:31:37,095 --> 00:31:39,430
She couldn't find anyone to...

472
00:31:39,464 --> 00:31:40,999
Where's the manager?

473
00:31:40,999 --> 00:31:42,867
Can someone call someone?

474
00:31:42,901 --> 00:31:44,068
At least, is there...

475
00:31:44,102 --> 00:31:47,372
They were feeling completely lost
in this environment.

476
00:31:47,405 --> 00:31:51,709
We were talking about that in -
I'm a wheelchair user.

477
00:31:51,743 --> 00:31:58,383
For me, the ramp is a necessity or an
access to the stage, if it's not a ramp,

478
00:31:58,416 --> 00:32:00,919
an access to the stage is a necessity.

479
00:32:00,919 --> 00:32:06,224
But then people, when they talk about
accessibility, I frequently talk with

480
00:32:06,257 --> 00:32:10,495
some venues owners and things like that.

481
00:32:10,528 --> 00:32:12,931
For them, accessibility is the ramp.

482
00:32:12,964 --> 00:32:16,067
I said, No, it's so much more than that.

483
00:32:16,100 --> 00:32:18,469
Again, it's a way of life, yeah?

484
00:32:18,503 --> 00:32:19,904
Exactly, yeah.

485
00:32:19,938 --> 00:32:22,040
I can relate to this
whole high stage thing.

486
00:32:22,040 --> 00:32:24,642
There's a place in Brixton
called Hootananny, and I

487
00:32:24,642 --> 00:32:27,812
played there a couple of times.
It's high.

488
00:32:27,845 --> 00:32:34,152
When I'm standing, the stage is probably
higher than my keyboard is to the floor.

489
00:32:34,185 --> 00:32:35,953
It's higher than that.

490
00:32:36,220 --> 00:32:40,358
I was getting closer to the edge of the
stage and I didn't realize this, 

491
00:32:40,358 --> 00:32:45,229
and I had my keyboard on my back because 
that's how I carry it in a backpack-style thing.

492
00:32:45,263 --> 00:32:47,899
I was very top-heavy.

493
00:32:47,932 --> 00:32:52,603
I just got this grab from behind
and I thought, What's happening?

494
00:32:52,637 --> 00:32:53,705
Am I being attacked?

495
00:32:53,738 --> 00:32:59,143
No, I was being saved because I was
about two inches from falling headfirst

496
00:32:59,177 --> 00:33:01,612
off the stage and it's high.

497
00:33:01,646 --> 00:33:05,583
So I would have hit concrete and 
I would have been in serious pain 

498
00:33:05,583 --> 00:33:07,852
with the added weight of a keyboard on my back.

499
00:33:07,885 --> 00:33:12,056
Because there's no barrier
around that stage, you're gone.

500
00:33:12,523 --> 00:33:16,728
So I have a hate of this stage
now, and I don't want to play there

501
00:33:16,761 --> 00:33:18,429
ever again if I don't have to.

502
00:33:18,463 --> 00:33:23,768
Were you able to report that to the owners?

503
00:33:23,835 --> 00:33:28,172
No, because I just didn't think about it
and they wouldn't have cared.

504
00:33:28,206 --> 00:33:30,942
It doesn't seem like the venue
that would have cared.

505
00:33:30,975 --> 00:33:33,711
There's no edge or ledge or anything.

506
00:33:33,745 --> 00:33:36,180
You just there or you're not.

507
00:33:36,214 --> 00:33:40,685
I don't like that stage ever again.

508
00:33:41,252 --> 00:33:43,221
I understand.

509
00:33:43,454 --> 00:33:45,056
Oh, man.

510
00:33:45,123 --> 00:33:48,459
Well, thank you.
I have a last question for you.

511
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:53,664
It's about people who might have
collaborated with you in your career

512
00:33:53,698 --> 00:33:59,570
and that you think of as people
who maybe guided you or motivated you

513
00:33:59,604 --> 00:34:02,507
or have a special place in your career.

514
00:34:02,540 --> 00:34:06,277
If you had a few names
to give, who would it be and why?

515
00:34:06,377 --> 00:34:09,313
Instantly, my MIDI teacher, Jez Nash

516
00:34:09,347 --> 00:34:13,918
from RNC, because he saw that I had not

517
00:34:13,951 --> 00:34:16,454
really used a DAW for sequencing before.

518
00:34:16,454 --> 00:34:19,590
DAW, by the way, is digital audio
workstation, like Cubase, 

519
00:34:19,590 --> 00:34:23,294
like Pro Tools, Logic, all of these things.

520
00:34:23,327 --> 00:34:24,896
Well, it's a podcast, I can't really tell you

521
00:34:24,896 --> 00:34:28,466
the story, but suffice to say, I was able to get hold

522
00:34:28,499 --> 00:34:34,639
of a DAW and begin sequencing now
using accessible software instead

523
00:34:34,672 --> 00:34:36,174
of a keyboard that did not talk.

524
00:34:36,207 --> 00:34:41,012
Also because the keyboard I told you about
earlier in the podcast, the SQ-16, was at

525
00:34:41,045 --> 00:34:45,616
my prior school, I didn't have anything
anymore because I'd left that place.

526
00:34:45,650 --> 00:34:49,320
He was able to connect me
with a decent DAW, 

527
00:34:49,320 --> 00:34:51,656
which is no longer decent, 
as we've talked about.

528
00:34:51,689 --> 00:34:57,795
That enabled me to then use it
for the next two, three years,

529
00:34:58,096 --> 00:34:59,464
which helped me immensely.

530
00:34:59,497 --> 00:35:03,267
I was able to still write and still
compose, and I still have, again,

531
00:35:03,267 --> 00:35:05,870
those tracks from all those years gone by.

532
00:35:06,170 --> 00:35:13,311
I'm very, very grateful to him for his
willingness to see good in me, I guess.

533
00:35:13,978 --> 00:35:19,717
I think the impact of great teachers,
and you will be a great teacher

534
00:35:19,717 --> 00:35:23,521
to your own students,
it's really important

535
00:35:23,521 --> 00:35:29,126
because it not only gives you some
solutions to your problems, basically,

536
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:33,164
but also you carry it for your whole life.

537
00:35:33,297 --> 00:35:33,831
Yeah.

538
00:35:33,865 --> 00:35:37,935
I remember him so fondly
because he was just excellent,

539
00:35:37,969 --> 00:35:43,708
both as personally and publicly,
likes a teacher and a friend as well.

540
00:35:43,741 --> 00:35:46,777
Someone I would be happy to
have dinner with, buy a drink for.

541
00:35:46,811 --> 00:35:49,413
I owe him a lot.
I owe him a lot.

542
00:35:50,781 --> 00:35:53,818
Well, thank you so much 
for this conversation.

543
00:35:53,851 --> 00:35:55,419
Thank you for having me.

544
00:35:55,453 --> 00:35:56,554
I wish you a great tour -

545
00:35:56,554 --> 00:35:59,457
Can I just say one last plug
is to say, Check my podcast too, please.

546
00:35:59,457 --> 00:36:00,691
Oh yeah. Go ahead.

547
00:36:00,725 --> 00:36:03,561
Where can we check your podcast?

548
00:36:03,561 --> 00:36:07,298
My podcast is because we're
a blind-sighted couple, I'm blind and

549
00:36:07,298 --> 00:36:13,104
my wife is sighted, we started a podcast
last year called StroongeCast.

550
00:36:13,137 --> 00:36:17,975
Now, the name Stroonge comes from
the first time we met, and I was probably

551
00:36:18,009 --> 00:36:21,979
playing with keyboards or being geeky
or something, and she came to visit me

552
00:36:22,013 --> 00:36:25,783
and she said that you're "stroonge,"
meaning strange, but I like you.

553
00:36:25,816 --> 00:36:26,817
I said, What does this mean?

554
00:36:26,817 --> 00:36:28,319
She said, Well,
that's my word for strange.

555
00:36:28,319 --> 00:36:30,555
Now, she doesn't remember
this conversation at all.

556
00:36:30,555 --> 00:36:33,891
This is in 2007, but I do.

557
00:36:33,925 --> 00:36:36,260
The word just fell out of use.

558
00:36:36,294 --> 00:36:38,863
But when I was looking for
a podcast name, I was like,

559
00:36:38,863 --> 00:36:40,831
I need something that no one else has.

560
00:36:40,865 --> 00:36:45,436
When you Google, S-T-R-O-O-N-G-E,
cast, the only thing

561
00:36:45,469 --> 00:36:47,138
that comes up is my podcast.

562
00:36:47,171 --> 00:36:52,577
It's very, very hard to find
a word or compound word

563
00:36:52,577 --> 00:36:55,313
that no one else has used in their life.

564
00:36:55,313 --> 00:36:57,582
So I did.

565
00:36:57,715 --> 00:36:58,683
Very good.

566
00:36:58,716 --> 00:37:02,920
Well, we will post that on this resource
page that I was mentioning earlier.

567
00:37:03,487 --> 00:37:04,422
Thank you.

568
00:37:04,455 --> 00:37:07,124
Okay, Thank you.
Have a great day and a great tour.

569
00:37:07,158 --> 00:37:08,159
Thank you.

570
00:37:08,192 --> 00:37:09,427
Thank you very much for having me.

571
00:37:09,460 --> 00:37:12,096
Thank you for listening to my story today.

572
00:37:12,129 --> 00:37:13,998
Thank you.
Bye, take care.

573
00:37:13,998 --> 00:37:14,632
Bye-bye.

574
00:37:16,400 --> 00:37:21,539
[Closing theme music]