Accessible Virtual Reality Musical Instruments: Facilitating Inclusion and Accessibility in Design, 2020-2023

Dataset for PhD thesis entitled "Accessible virtual reality musical instruments: facilitating inclusion and accessibility in design."

Abstract for thesis:
The growing diversity of digital technologies adapted and adopted for disabled musicians reflects an
evolving social ecosystem of inclusive music making with an expanding toolset of accessible musical
instruments utilised by a group of disability allies. This thesis is an ethnographic study, qualitative in
construct and embedded in third wave Human Computer Interaction research practice. It examines
how immersive technology and its ecosystem of artefacts and toolsets, can be utilised as a bedrock for
inclusive research practice with accessibility for both disabled musicians and Access Music Tutors as
its core value. It is also artistic practice as research, situating the author within two facilitated
community music programmes hosted by charity and research partner Drake Music Northern Ireland.
The author introduces prototype accessible virtual reality musical instruments, and methods for
controlling the virtual musical environment to an experienced group of physically disabled musicians
of The Wired Ensemble, and to a community music outreach programme with novice musicians
attending the charity Brain Injury Matters.

This thesis documents how Accessible Virtual Reality Musical Instruments were prototyped, trialled,
and evaluated using an inclusive methodology of two technology probes followed by a participatory
design study. Knowledge sharing is key to understanding usable affordances of the embodied musician
embedded within a unique, complex, and versatile system adopting the Oculus Quest 2 as an
accessible digital musical instrument. Independency of virtual environment control is guided by the
principle of Centred Control enabling three disabled participant musicians to select, manipulate and
perform virtual musical instruments using ability-based design. Participant musicians organise their
own performance space using hand recognition and head orientated selection techniques for accurate
and meaningful musical instrument actioning. Co-location of physical surfaces and assistive
technologies are used as aids to virtual artefact control and performance.

Designing within the context of interdependent music making within facilitated accessible music
workshops proved a stable and nurturing platform for participants, enabling confidence, trust and
meaningful music making towards goals of wellbeing, musicality, and public performance.

This dataset contains:

Accessible Virtual Reality Musical Instruments Facilitating Accessibility and Inclusion in Design - Dataset: Digital Assets for recreating the virtual reality musical environments used in research.
Licence.
01: Digital Access Pack
01 DAP Install_to_Headset.apk
02 Network Receiver
03 Digital Access Pack AVRMI Project - Ableton Live Set
04 loopMIDISetup_1_0_16_27 – Zip file
02: Unity Assets
1 Code Repository
1: Environmental Manipulations
2: MIDI
3: Networking
4: Signifiers
2 Colour Palettes
A: Colour Sensitive Collections
B: Design Collections
README (local)


Accessible Virtual Reality Musical Instruments Facilitating Accessibility and Inclusion in Design - Video Documentation submitted as portfolio of research.
01: Musician Perspectives 2023
02: Zoomtime Performance
03: Centred Control Facilitation
04: Documentation Prototyping HOST
05: Documentation Prototyping ToMeToU
06: Documentation BBC Broadcast 02-11-23
07: Documentation Presentation Years 1 & 2.
08: Videography Consent Form.
README (local)

Accessible Virtual Reality Musical Instruments Facilitating Accessibility and Inclusion in Design-
Interaction History Timeline of Development.
Interaction History 2021 (.xls & .csv formats)
Interaction History 2022 (.xls & .csv formats)
Interaction History 2023 (.xls & .csv formats)
Timeline of Development
README (local)

Accessible Virtual Reality Musical Instruments Facilitating Accessibility and Inclusion in Design-Questionnaires researching musician experience in codesign and research using immersive music technologies.
01: November 2021 Questionnaires
02: November 2022 Questionnaires
Participation Consent Forms
README (local)

Accessible Virtual Reality Musical Instruments Facilitating Accessibility and Inclusion in Design- Interviews & Thematic Analysis conducted during research.
Thematic Analysis Code Summary (.xls)
Thematic Analysis Code Summary (.csv)
README (local)

Accessible Virtual Reality Musical Instruments Facilitating Accessibility and Inclusion in Design-Avatar Video Analysis
01: Video Analysis Themes Summary (.xls & .csv formats)
02: Notes on Thematic Analysis
03: Video Analysis Christine
Christine_Session_1_2021-11-03_11-31-56
Christine_Session_2_2021-11-10_11-15-46
Video_Analysis_Session_1_Christine_Thematic_Analysis_Complete (.xls & .csv formats)
04: Video Analysis Gary
Video_Evidence_Gary_Session_1_ 2021-11-03
Video_Evidence_Gary_Session_2_ 2021-11-10
Video_Evidence_Gary_Session_3_2021-11-24
Session 1 Gary Video Analysis (.xls & .csv formats)
Session 2 Gary Video Analysis (.xls & .csv formats)
Session 3 Gary Video Analysis (.xls & .csv formats)
05: Video Analysis Mary Louise
Video_Evidence_ML_Session_1_2021-11-05_14-40-42
Video_Evidence_ML_Session_2_2021-11-19_14-39-41
Video_Evidence_ML_Session_3_2021-11-19_15-07-20
Session_1_Video_Analysis_ML_TA_Complete (.xls & .csv formats)
Session_2_Video_Analysis_ML_TA_Complete (.xls & .csv formats)
Session_3_Video_Analysis_ML_TA_complete (.xls & .csv formats)
README (local)


Accessible Virtual Reality Musical Instruments Facilitating Accessibility and Inclusion in Design- Images
01 Images - Performers
02 Images - GIVME
03 Images – Scenes and Instruments
04 Images - Selection & Ableton Integration Networks
05 Images - Local Spaces
06 Images - Selection and Manipulation Techniques
README (local)

Participant Consent Forms

Data is hosted at UK Data Service. Please follow doi to access the data