art-parlor

About art-parlor

Friends in Art welcomes you to The Art Parlor where visually-impaired artists of all types will discuss their work. Pull up a chair, bring your beverage of choice, and listen to thoughtful, stimulating conversations with visually-impaired artists in all media and from all parts of the world.

Publisher

Friends in Art

Category

arts

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

11 Nov 2020

Latest episode

20 Aug 2026

Latest episodes

47 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Aug 2026

   The Art Parlor for August Presents: Kai Owens!

   Welcome to the August, 2026 edition of The Art Parlor, brought to you by Friends in Art! In this episode, our guest is Kai Owens – a gentleman you may remember from our past showcase events! We hear about his path in music as a drummer and learn how he got started, including the mentors who encouraged him and pushed him beyond the boundaries of comfort. As you will see, he is a talented young man headed for even greater heights! Included in this presentation are some music tracks for your listening pleasure. AI-Generated Transcript Jason • 00:00 Opinions expressed on ACB media are those of the respective program contributors and cannot be assumed to serve as endorsements of products or views by friends in art, the American Council of the Blind, their elected officials, or staff. Friends in Art welcomes you to the Art Parlor, where visually impaired artists of all types will discuss their work. Pull up a chair, bring along your beverage of choice, and listen to thoughtful, stimulating conversations with visually impaired artists in all media and from all parts of the world. And now, here's your host, Peter Altschul. Peter • 00:48 Greetings! My name is Peter Altschul. I am the scholarship committee chair of Friends and Art, and this is our most recent edition of Art Parlor. And our guest is a scholarship winner of five years ago, Kai Owens. Hey, Kai. Great to be here. Thanks for having me. I want to spend most of our time talking about how things have changed for you in the past five years. But before we do that, talk a little bit about how you got into drumming and how it changed your life. Kai • 01:19 Yeah, no doubt. So I got into drumming in fifth grade. I was around maybe 10 or 11 years old. And my older brother was a drummer in high school, and he was in the marching band and in the orchestra and all that kind of stuff. So I saw him kind of coming up through that program. And obviously me being the younger brother, I wanted to follow everything he was doing. And in the midst of that, I had just gotten my vision diagnosis about two years before fifth grade. So I was looking for some things that were, you know, non-visual and my parents were looking for some things to put me in and, you know, let me get out some energy and some anxiety. So I got a drum set and I started playing in the middle school band as well in the percussion section. And then before I knew it, I hit high school and I decided to not continue with the school orchestra and everything, but instead joined a school of rock sort of program from my local music store where I was taking lessons. And after a couple years of doing that, I realized, you know, just how much I love performing and how comfortable I was on stage compared to most everyone else I was around. And that kind of led me to realize that, you know, music could be a very viable career path for me. So when I started applying to colleges, I decided that I was going to go for music, and I chose music theory to be particular because at the time I thought I might want to go further into the academia music sort of world. And then in the midst of getting that degree, I realized that I instead actually kind of had always wanted to do performance and just thought academia might be safer. And then I realized that none of them are very safe career options. So if I'm going to go for one of them, I might as well just do what I'm really wanting to do. So I took as many performance based classes and was in a band all through college and just graduated from my undergrad at the University of Georgia this past December and I'll be starting this fall for my Masters in Jazz drums at William Peter • 03:15 Patterson University in New Jersey. And we'll talk a lot about your college experience, but before we do that, I want to talk about how you were when you were applying for a scholarship five years ago. Let me tell you what I remember. I remember you sending these drum tracks that were amazingly complicated. I think there were meter changes and all kinds of cool stuff. What do you remember about your life at that time and as you were preparing for college? Kai • 03:43 Yeah, it was definitely a very different time musically for me than where I'm at now. But I think a lot of it carried over nicely. So I was doing a lot of stuff with progressive metal and math rock and death metal and all these very heavy, very technical genres. And I was really enjoying the just the challenge that that brought in through that, that kind of, in a way helped me get into a lot of these programs because I had a lot of this academic technical knowledge about drumming. And then I got into my program and I showed up to my first week of lessons. Peter • 04:18 And let's stop there. Because I want to talk a little about the scholarship process. So you apply for the scholarship. And I remember calling you, I think essentially talking about your scholarship. And as I remember, you had broken your foot in the hospital and you were in the hospital getting treatment for that. Do you remember that and how that sort of, what do you remember about Kai • 04:39 that whole process? Yeah, that was an interesting time. That was the summer right before college for me and I was on a trip with a bunch of other blind skateboarders, which I was really big into skateboarding at the time. And on day two of this trip, I broke my fibula in my lower right leg, which is obviously a very important limb for playing drum set. That's where you're playing your bass drum. And I had to take several editions for colleges and for this scholarship, I think all of them were recorded while I couldn't use my right leg at all. I was in a cast. So I had luckily had all this practice playing double bass drums. So I just forewent my right foot entirely and played all my auditions with only my left foot switching between the hi-hat and the That's that's good, I suppose, but it's pretty funny looking back at those. And what a time that was trying to, you know, juggle all those difficulties. Peter • 05:41 So I'm a drummer, too, as you know, and folks listening to this podcast know. Talk about sort of the complexities of playing bass drum and hi hat at the same time. Usually the bass drum is at the right foot and the hi hats with your left foot. That's the standard procedure. What was it like having to go back and forth and using your left foot all that with all that energy? Kai • 06:00 Yeah, I didn't find it too bad because when playing, you know, a double pedal on the bass drum, your left foot's kind of juggling those two roles already. So it was just kind of making that juggling a little bit more on the forefront of everything I was doing had to be that juggling. So I tried to just orient grooves and everything that I picked for my auditions kind of around, you know, not needing two of the voices at the same time on the kit. So like, if I needed to play a closed hi-hat, then I couldn't really play my bass drum unless I used my hand or something to close the hi-hat. So I would maybe go to the ride symbol and just let the hi-hats be open while I'm playing the bass drum. And then maybe I'd close the hi-hat for a few notes to get the sound I needed there before I switch back to the bass drum. So it's just kind of a funny one-footed juggling process. Peter • 06:48 As a percussionist, you often have to do those kinds of weird things just in general principle, whether you're playing in jazz or playing in orchestral or wind ensemble stuff, band stuff. That's all kinds of weird things as a percussionist that you don't know other instruments. So we were thrilled to give you the scholarship and you went to college and I interrupted your story. So you went to college, what did they tell you? Kai • 07:12 I went to University of Georgia. I showed up there, I was studying with Professor Timothy Adams, who's a great classical percussionist and was a orchestral timpaniist for years, but he also grew up playing drum set and played professionally in sessions and in jazz bands and everything like that. So I showed up on my first day of lessons and I was the first student he ever took on who was just a drum set student and not doing any sort of classical percussion. And he gave me the album "Workin'" by Miles Davis with the great Philly Joe Jones on drums. And he gave me this, or told me the record to get, And I went home and he said, "Learn this whole record." So I go home that week after my very first lesson. And this was still kind of during COVID. So I think he actually gave me the assignment, maybe over email or I'm not even quite sure how he did it. For a while we were set up on two opposite sides of this huge room with like 50 feet between us while we're playing drums. So he gives me this record and I go home and learn it. And I learned pretty much every song on there, at least the ones that I could pull off at the time. And I come back the next week I play along the record in my lesson. And ever since then, I pretty much haven't looked back and have been doing jazz as my main style ever since then. I had zero exposure to jazz pretty much up until that point. And in that one week, I fell in love with it and have now committed my whole career path and journey and music to it. Peter • 08:44 So let's talk about that. How was it the shift from heavy metal/all the stuff you were playing, pretty intense stuff that's not traditional jazz, whatever you wanted to find it, to playing Miles Davis? What was the shift like for you? Kai • 09:00 It was pretty huge. It actually cracks me up to look at, because I have some videos from those early lessons during COVID that I was submitting videos. And I go back to those every now and again and just see how I was playing and sounding. it cracks me up because you can tell I just it was so new and so foreign to me. But one good thing is that a lot of the, you know, the technique and physical ability that I'd worked up over the years translated, but not not very directly kind of in tangential sort of ways. But from that complexity of metal and everything, I found the complexity in jazz music to be kind of similarly stimulating, but also more free. Because in metal, you know, you're learning these, these particular parts and you're trying to execute them pretty much as close to as you can to being a computer. And in jazz, there's all this complexity. And you're trying to constantly think of how you can change it and improve on it and make things sound different every single time you play a song. So it kind of took all the same challenges and then just made them more fresh and more creative for me, which I just found way more rewarding after some time. And I still love all those past genres I've studied. And I think they did great things for me, but I've definitely connected with jazz in a way that I hadn't previously connected with music before. Peter • 10:24 So you talked about your drum lessons and how that got you started. How did you get connected with your first jazz ensemble or jazz band or whatever it was that you got connected with? Kai • 10:35 Yeah, I started my first year at UGA. I had auditioned for the lower level big band or the program had two jazz ensembles. One was like the main, you know, top big band. One was kind of the lower student group, which was usually less people and a lot more just like beginner levels. And then there's also a smaller combos, a couple of those. So to start, I was in this lower jazz ensemble and I did that for a full year. And I had to audition in similarly while my leg was broken. And there's my professor that I studied with in the jazz department still laughs at those videos every now and again and brings them up to me. 'Cause I auditioned for this jazz band with my huge metal drum set. And I'm playing with only my left foot 'cause my right leg's broken. But he let me in and he thought I had something there. And he could tell that I was interested. And then through that program, There was two professors in charge of that ensemble, a really renowned jazz pianist named James Wideman, who was starting teaching at UGA my very first year. And another pianist who was also hired that same year, Gregory Satterthwaite, who is a great pianist in his own right. And he's a younger guy and he had just finished his doctorate at North Texas for jazz, which is one of the biggest jazz programs in the country. And so they alternated. We met Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and they'd both teach for about 25 minutes, and they'd, you know, each finish two or three songs for our concert at the end of the year. But in that band, a lot of it was just working on learning to sight read and learning to improvise. So it wasn't quite as focused on final products as it was focused on just getting the students up to speed. And after a year of that, I managed to finagle my way into the top level jazz ensemble as a couple other students graduated from there. One was in their undergrad, one was in, I think their masters or maybe even their doctorate. And managed to get my way into that. And that was with our third jazz professor, David DeAngelo, who's a alto saxophonist who used to live in New York City and his friends with so many musicians up there and has a lot of great connections. He toured in the Buddy Rich big band when he was in his early 20s, right? He dropped out of his master's program to go tour with Buddy Rich. So, you know, some really Peter • 13:11 great. I'm sorry. I was gonna, the Buddy Rich band has its moments, but it has its weirdnesses as as well. Sorry, I distracted you and myself too. Oh, good. Let's talk about the whole issue of improvisation and learning your music. You of course are, as I understand, legally blind, right? Yes. So do you use print music at all? I do not. Or a large print music? Not one bit. I didn't think so, 'cause I didn't either when I was doing the work that you were doing. So how did you learn the music? How did you learn the various charts you were playing? How has that developed over the years? Kai • 13:51 Yeah, early on it was more of a struggle. I definitely, it took me a while to understand, what I was trying to do. I hadn't quite put together how form really worked in jazz and I couldn't put together those patterns quite as easily. So I was trying to just memorize these, like they were these, just all one long song. And I was just thinking very linearly about all the hits and all the different figures with the horns, because big band music has just constant notes spattered all over the whole thing that the drummer is trying to match up with the horn sections. And that took me a while. It was just kind of, sometimes there'd be demo recordings of the arrangements where I could kind of listen to those, but inevitably our directors would change the arrangement for our specific band and we'd cut sections or extend things. So it really came down to just playing it enough times in rehearsal where I could just memorize the whole thing. Or sometimes I would, once we sort of had it together or close enough, I would take a voice memo of it so I could practice along with that. And we also had all those big bands had two drummers in each of them. So if I really couldn't figure something out or if we were sight reading something down for the first time, the other drummer might hop on if it's a really weird chart, I'd hear him play it once give myself a fighting chance of knowing what's going to happen. So that's pretty much how I ran things for that first, you know, a couple years really. But towards the end I was in the big band my very last semester as well. I went back to it after a year off to, you know, finish other classes and then I had some time my last semester. Went back into the Jazz Ensemble 1 and I definitely found it much easier than before. After four and a half years or so of working on Jazz, I'd Finally, it could understand and hear how the form worked in jazz. So instead of having to memorize this whole song, I would just remember, "Oh, in this A section, this figure gets repeated each time." And then maybe we lop off this little section of the form before we go back to the top. So I was able to navigate those patterns a lot more easily. And then I just had to realize what was different about it each time it rolled around and not try to memorize it, note for note, what exactly is happening. Annie • 16:16 Hi, this is Danny, I have a question. I'm sorry, Peter, can I bun it? So how does your bandmates respond to you? Is there a comparison between how things worked out like when you first started big band versus like, at the end, your bandmates all like, oh, I wonder how he's gonna do this or anything like that? Did you have any of those kind of attitudes that kind of, you know, were like different than, you know, how did you handle that kind of, if you felt it, you know, that questioning, how did you handle that? Kai • 16:52 I'd say I didn't feel it too much. It was a real small jazz program. I couldn't even tell you the number of students, but very small, and it's only a jazz minor at our school so far. So because of that, I was one of only maybe two or three drummers actually focusing on jazz. And I was the only one who was a music student with the primary instrument of drum set. So while I couldn't read the charts, I usually had more focus on learning jazz drum set just in general. So what I couldn't read as quickly as everyone else, like kind of just made up for in general knowledge about the music. Peter • 17:36 Okay, yeah. Kai • 17:37 And the other students, I mean, especially I got, I got the worst of my playing out of the way in that lower level ensemble. Okay, yeah. Jason • 17:46 Where the professors were, the professors were, Kai • 17:49 you know, obviously throwing me stuff constantly to, you know, fix this, change this. And the whole rest of the band was similarly early on in their journey. So we all just kind of sounded bad together. (laughing) My lack of reading ability was really was not even close to the the biggest deal of things going wrong in that band Guys, I mean that is no, you know, no, hey, but it's just early on that was in you know a band meant for learning Peter • 18:16 Right. Oh, so I want to I want to I want to add a sort of add to Annie's question because you Not only did you play in the big jazz band? You were in a lot of small jazz ensembles talk about that process and as I understand it you sort of led, grew to lead that whole program or if I understand your story. Talk about that. Kai • 18:35 My first experience in like a small jazz group was the UGA's jazz combo, which at the time had quite a few musicians that I would end up playing with over the years, but I was still very much figuring out, you know, how drums are supposed to function in a small jazz ensemble and I was lacking all of the nuance that it required, but it was a great opportunity to start getting to play with other people. After that, that was just one semester for me. Then I had the opportunity to join this band that some other UGA jazz students had put together called Swing Theory. They had been inviting me to sit in at their rehearsals and it's set up as a collective. There's a bunch of people on every instrument and people come as they can, and gigs get doled out based on how often people are showing up and their commitment levels. So I managed to join them along with another drummer. And over a couple months, I was showing up early to every rehearsal to set up drums and always knowing the music that we were supposed to learn. And the people in charge kind of took note and noticed that. So they started putting me on more gigs. They saw how committed I was. So I ended up playing quite a bit with him and then the band leader moved away, he had graduated, put someone else in charge, that musician then, six months later had graduated and he was about to move on to different things. And he had seen how hard I had been working and through the leadership over to me pretty much. So that's how I kind of became band leader of this group after that was maybe a year into playing with this band. And by that time, I was, you know, I was proficient at gigs. I'd been on enough of them. But then after taking charge of it, I could kind of lead it in, you know, the direction I saw it going and it started to become more serious about the music, a little higher expectations on the people involved. And a core few of us kind of ended up coming out of that and really pushing each other to just get better and better. So there's me and two of my close friends, a saxophonist named Levi Brown and a pianist named Daniel Ashraf. And the three of us, you know, other people came and went and there's been some other great people who have been very committed with us. But the three of us, anytime one of us will wanna learn a song or a style, we throw it over to the other ones and make them learn it too. So I pretty much ended up doing the learning of three people just to keep up with these guys. And we just did that for, now it's been an additional two or three years after that point that this band's been running, where we're just pushing each other constantly, rehearsing twice a week for two hours. We have a weekly three hour gig every Sunday, and then any other gigs that get booked on top of that. So we were playing at minimum seven hours a week together pretty much. And that starts to stack up pretty quick, you know, over the course of years. And where I saw my peers playing at one level, there was people who were better than me, maybe two, three years ago. And then this band just fast tracked me so much and was so focused in on a goal that I managed to really progress at a speed that was unlike the people around me who weren't quite as focused on one specific thing that I was doing. And through that, you know, I managed to go from zero jazz experience at the start of my freshman year to leading a group at the end of my sophomore year to being one of the the few jazz ensembles in the city that was playing gigs we headlined at the historic 40 watt club We played the big aft fest music festival We played gigs, you know at most the venues in town who were opened up booking jazz bands I've sat in or played gigs with almost every jazz musician in the city now and Through these five years and managed to get me up to the skill level where I was able to compete For graduate school with people had been playing jazz music since they were you know five years old in some cases Peter • 22:59 So I want to go back a little bit talk about How playing in a small jazz group is the same and different than playing in a jazz band You know a large jazz ensemble Kai • 23:11 Yeah, I'd say a lot of the skills are very similar, but there's kind of different levels of Responsibility and in different things you're responsible for so to me in a small group setting You're responsible for making the band swing and have a really good like feel really good sense of time the time's not you know going up and down willy-nilly and you're responsible for, you know, interacting a lot with the other musicians. So the way you're playing and, and comping, which is like your embellishment sort of and accompaniment for the other musicians, all of that is interacting with everyone and it's a lot more free flowing. So there's usually the standard form for traditional jazz is the head, which is like the main melody of the song. And then it has chord changes underneath, like the harmony. And then that harmony repeats over and over, you know, it's usually maybe 32 bars is very standard. And then people solo over top of those changes. And then at the end of the song, you play the melody again. So there's a lot, a lot of freedom in the drums. And there's basically nothing you're 100% required to play. It's free to the point of being incredibly difficult. In big band, you're still responsible for that same time and feel. But on top of that, responsible for making these sections of the arrangement feel very particular and different. So the drums are often leading, you know, the dynamic shifts. If something has to get really loud, you have to kind of prepare the audience's ears for it by setting up these big hits with all the horns and you're, you're memorizing these big thought out things. And there's not nearly as much improvising while there are solos. It's just not the main thing. And it's kind of the same. like there can be pretty thought out arrangements for small groups as well, but it's not generally quite as much of the focus. I think the other thing with big band too is you're generally playing a lot simpler and a lot more in service for the rest of the band when there's you know 14, 15 other musicians all listening to what you're playing to stay together. You have to be very clear about what you're playing and where the time is where when you're with a small group you can be pretty free with things if you're with that sort of group and everyone sticks together and everyone's kind of keeping each other in check. In the big band you're very much driving the train and if you do something and mess up then you could throw off an entire horn section and then the Peter • 25:44 arrangements you know falling apart before you know it. It happens all the time. Can you talk, you said a couple pieces that for you to talk about. Going back you talked about the basic head of a piece and then it repeats as people do solos. You sent us one of those pieces and that piece is Kai • 26:03 called? Like someone in love. I'm not sure if it's on the file name there but yeah. So we're going to Peter • 26:09 play it but I want you to talk about it. So the one thing that's interesting about this this piece is it's played with brushes and that's fixed. Talk about what brushes are and how cool they are. Kai • 26:22 Yeah, so brushes are amazing. A lot of people new to jazz drumming are scared of them, unfortunately, and think there's some big trade-off from sticks, and you're, you know, they're just to play quiet or something silly like that. But brushes really aren't designed at their base level to be a dynamic shift. They're designed to be a timbral shift in like a choice that you would make about an arrangement. So what they are, these often their times now they're retractable. So they have this little handle that slides down this small metal shaft. And then at the other end, there's all these metal wire bristles that kind of stick out. And they were actually originally designed as fly swatters. Funny enough, the patent for the earliest jazz brushes were fly swatters that people realized would sound good sweeping them along the drum had kind of like swishing them. And over the years, they've changed and developed in some ways. But it allows you to play with the brush staying on the head and getting lateral motions from the texture of the head. or you can play them like sticks, like up and down. There's so many things you can do because of those variables that sticks just can't do. And this song, like someone in love, brushes with this piano tree I was playing with, fit the character of it better to what I was hearing. And this recording is one of the ones that was part of my graduate school editions for all three schools I auditioned for. This track went to all of the schools, and it helped me get into two of them, which I'm very proud of and very happy about. And it was recorded with that Professor James Wideman from my UGA program, and another professional musician from in town, Chris Enghouser, who's an educator and basist. And they were really some of the best people in the city I could get my hands on. And I was very happy that I convinced my Professor James Wideman to play these with me, because he actually taught at both of the schools that I got into. It's very funny having a former professor at these schools be on a student's audition tape and obviously his playing is incredible and it elevated my own. Peter • 28:40 So what do you think got these schools' attention in this particular tape? What do you think said this guy is pretty cool? Kai • 28:47 If I had to take a little bit of a guess along with one of the schools had an in-person round of auditions. So after this, so I went in and got to get some of the professors feedback in person. And one thing that I've heard some great professors say to me that was a huge compliment is that they took note of how much I made decisions based on kind of orchestrating the sounds and wasn't really thinking just like a drummer. One professor at SUNY Purchase, His name is Pete Malinverney, incredible pianist, said that to me in my in-person auditions there. He was like, "You're playing like a musician in an orchestrator and not just a drummer." And I think a lot of people my age tend to go towards, you know, sometimes people tend towards the trends and the popular things and very flashy, modern sort of playing. And that's just not at all what I've been drawn towards. And all of my favorite musicians are very much in service of the music and of their fellow musicians and are trying to make the song sound as good as they can and not make the drums sound like the focal point all the time. And there's a time and a place for that, but this song was trying to show off that, you know, that subtlety and making the band and the pianist who was soloing sound as good as they possibly could. Peter • 30:18 And there's also a brushed drum solo in this piece, which is really cool. And I encourage people to note that when it comes up. So we're gonna play that song now and then we'll move on to something else. I'm going to Annie • 31:31 I'm going to Cut the top of the dough into small pieces. Put the dough in the oven pan and bake for 20 minutes at 150 degrees. The dough is baked. Peter • 34:32 Okay, thank you, Jason. So now I want to talk about the second piece that you sent us, which I think is a fragment, correct? Yes. The name of that piece is? The name of that one is Kai • 34:44 Olio. Olio. The great Sonny Rollins who just passed a couple weeks ago. Yep. He was an amazing guy. Peter • 34:52 So talk about what prompted you to, you sent this piece to auditions as part of your audition Kai • 34:58 package to these schools, correct? No, this one actually was just recorded three days before this interview at a show I just played. Oh, okay. So what, what Peter • 35:08 problems recorded live? Yep. What, what prompted you to send this to us? Because we asked you to send you some samples, send us some samples. What prompted you to send this particular Kai • 35:18 thing to us? Yeah, so I've been working a lot this past six months after graduating on my ability to solo and improvise while still staying very true to the form of the song. And that is very difficult to do. Because there's nothing that your, your place has to be linked to the melody. You know, there's not chord changes that we're outlining. And there's not a physical melody, or there's not really like notes of a melody that we can easily reference. So staying true to the song's form is much more of an internal challenge. at least in my opinion, because you also don't have the other musicians accompanying you in any way. The drum solo, everyone drops out entirely. So the whole time in this solo, I take two choruses of a solo, which is two sets of 32 bars. And the entire time in my head, I'm singing the melody of the song. And I wanted to kind of put this in there to demonstrate some of my, you know, soloing improvisation voice on the drums, as well as how that form can maybe come across sometimes in drums, which is it's much more subtle. It's going to be almost impossible for people to hear unless they know the song really well, or they're just very good at counting to 32. Peter • 36:44 But one of the things that I found fascinating about this drum solo, I didn't catch it, of course, that you were using the head as it's, you know, following it. But you have the hi-hat. Now the hi-hat sounds like "chchch" right on two and four and that's consistent through the entire solo. And so you hear this thing on two and four and the and you are playing things often counter to it. And which I thought I thought was very, very cool. The other thing I kind of liked about this solo is you sort of start with this snare drum and then you gradually feel add other drums to it. you know, but it just starts with the snare and I thought that was really cool. You gradually end up adding stuff to it as the solo goes along. And then the recording you send us, you play the head one more time with the band and is that correct? Do I have that more or less? Yeah, yeah, you got that. Cool. So we're going to play that now, Jason. Let's play that. [drums] Okay, thank you. Where are you going to school beginning this fall? I will be at William Patterson University in New Jersey. And my understanding is that's a really good jazz program. What do you anticipate happening there when you go there? What do you think you're gonna be working on? Kai • 39:50 I'm very excited for it overall. It's still a little bit of a, you know, up in the air. I don't quite know how it'll all go, but I'm very excited because one of my living drum heroes, by the name of Joe Farnsworth, is one of the jazz drum professors there, who I will hopefully be studying with. And he was actually the kind of the final straw that made me decide to move to New York City eventually and really pursue this performance career. So I was in New York City on this jazz musical theater Maymaster program that UGA did. And one of our off nights, I found that Joe Farnsworth was playing at a club near where we were staying. And I made it out there to see him. And I got to sit about six inches away from his high hats, just sitting right next to him and got to interact with him. And I smiled for about two and a half hours straight watching him play with this piano trio. And I was just mind-blown. It was the best drumming I had heard in my entire life in person. And I realized in that moment that I had to be a part of what was going on there. And what was going on in New York City and with his teaching and his personality. I knew that I wanted to study under someone like that who was so kind and was approaching this music from a place of love and not just discipline in following rules. And by wanting to study with him, I reached out to him and was like, where are you teaching? Like, where can I study with you? What school should I apply to if I wanna come to New York City? And William Patterson is actually where he got his undergraduate degree from, and now he's teaching there. And I knew that, you know, that was on my list for places to go. And when I got in, they only accept, you know, a couple of master's students in their drum set program each year, managed to get one of those spots. And to me, that's kind of a stepping stone of all the professors there are big names in the New York City scene. A lot of the musicians are trying to move to New York City after studying here. So it's kind of my like jumping off point into that world and that scene of New York City, as well as getting to study with some of my heroes, Joe Farnsworth, and one of my favorite pianists of all time is one of the directors of that program named Bill Charlop. And there's just so many names in that program that I've listened to on records now for years and getting to get that information and that time studying from the people that I've been hearing now for years is really, as close as it can get to studying from the greats who developed this music in the 1900s. Peter • 42:36 So I wanna ask you an offbeat question. We were talking at another time and you talked about your reading habits. And you talked about, I want you to share the story, but I wanna show you, I know what I'm talking about. You talked about how you used to read books really, really fast and now you're reading, you come back to reading and are reading books at normal speed. A, you have the story right. Talk about that and talk about how that influenced, how do you think that influenced the way you play drums? Kai • 43:08 Oh, interesting. When I was younger, I was very into reading. I mean, we're talking middle school, 10 to 14 or so. I got very into audio books. And a lot of the times I would just have them, the text to speech type of audio books, not an actual voice actor. And at the time I was trying to learn all of my accessibility tools and my assistive technology. And I, for some reason, felt it very important to just listen to things as fast as possible, to consume enough information and keep up with my class. And that kind of bled into my daily, you know, reading just for the fun of it. And before I knew it, I was in sometime in middle school. And my words per minute listening to these books was up to 640 words a minute. And it was to the point where, you know, if you zone out for a couple of seconds and you're already through a page. So it became kind of an exercise in focus more than any sort of enjoyment out of it. So once I got to high school and I had to read a lot from my classes, I kind of fell out of love with reading because I had turned into this challenge almost. And as I was nearing the end of college, my mom was trying to get me back into reading. she had been using this app called Libby, which is through the library services. You can read as many audio books as you want. You just have to put a hold on them through your library card, like a library system, but it's all audio books on your app. So I finally figured I'd give it a try, and I started reading them at a normal speed, and actually done by voice actors instead of text-to-speech. And I found so much more enjoyment not trying to, you know, essentially rush through my leisure activities, 'cause the faster you go through a leisure activity, the less leisure you have in a way. So I started listening to things at normal speed and now I've read, that was, you know, last March or so. So now in June, I've read around about 110, 120 novels since then. Ooh, you beat me. Annie • 45:20 That's too... (laughing) Kai • 45:23 I read about 80. Yeah, so I've been putting some good work. I'm already... My goodness. Yeah, I think that's right at least. Somewhere in there, I've been reading a lot for sure. I'm averaging a novel every three or so days right now. Jason • 45:40 Oh, Lord. And that's just at normal speed. Kai • 45:41 So that's maybe 10, 12 hours of listening per book. As far as how that influenced my approach to drumming, I think the patience, maybe that it took me, finding the patience to take the leisure activity for what it was and reading and enjoying the story at the pace that it was designed at and not trying to rush through it as fast as possible for a challenge kind of plays into my listening and playing habits in a way probably, because jazz music is very much an oral tradition where listening to the records and listening to the greats is emphasized. Jason • 46:23 And you have to be able to sit down Kai • 46:25 and listen to this music for hours and listen to entire records straight through to really understand what was going on musically and chronologically. And you have to kind of approach it with that source, that sense of study and patience. And that kind of comes through in playing as well. if you're listening, or let's say as a drummer, I'm accompanying soloists 90% of the time. And if someone's soloing and I don't have the patience to listen to what they're presenting and just feel the need to constantly kind of butt in with my own ideas if I get bored or something, then I'm not really serving the song or the other players very well. So you kind of have to be okay taking that slower kind backseat to actually, you know, make everyone else's experience better and make your own better as well. You just have to have enough patience to realize that it's actually better when you're doing it slower and at a good pace. Peter • 47:25 I think it's absolutely fascinating. And it shows in your, because when I heard you play a couple of years ago, you sent you sent us a track to add to one of our showcases. You're playing was so different from what I remember you playing for audition. Your audition was great, but you were in a very different place, clearly even, you know, two or three years ago. And I think, you know, I think a better place. And I think their reading is reflected as well. Come on, thank you so much for joining us and doing this on short notice. And we wish you well as you head to New York City. I live there for a while. For many years, it's a great place, but very chaotic. I'm sure you've figured that out already. Have a great time and we'll check in with you in another two or three years. Annie • 48:08 It will be well, Kai. Amazing. Thank you all so much. Great things are going to happen for you, my friend. I can just tell. I can feel it. Kai • 48:14 Oh, well, thank you. You're welcome. It's been great being on the podcast and I appreciate you all having me. Peter • 48:19 All right. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. Jason • 48:25 Art Parlor is brought to you by Friends in Art and ACB Media. It airs several times a week on ACB Media One. To listen and for a full schedule, go to acbmedia.org/one (http://acbmedia.org/one). Art Parlor is also available as a podcast. Just search for Art Parlor in your favorite podcast app. We'd love to hear from you. You can email us at artparlor@friendsinart.org. And please feel free to check out our website, www.friendsinart.org (http://www.friendsinart.org). Thank you so much for listening and for your support. We'll be back next month.

2. 

   13 Jun 2026

   The Art Parlor for June, 2026 Presents: Jessica Tomlinson!

   Episode Notes This month, it was our pleasure to speak with Jessica Tomlinson! Jessica is an eclectic composer, synthesist, keyboard player, and recording engineer based in the Tampa Bay area who happens to be legally blind. When she isn't playing pop rock with the band Rainbow Portal, she's crafting boundary-pushing experimental compositions in her home studio. She serves on the Audio Engineering Society’s Accessibility committee and the MIDI Association Special Interest Group focusing on accessibility. Jessica is also an active member of SoundGirls and the Earth Modular Society. She gives back to the community through Girls Rock Camp St. Pete and teaches blind senior citizens to use assistive technology. She also creates visual art with a powerful magnifier. I hope you enjoy the show as much as we did creating it! For more information about Friends in Art, please visit their website: <https://www.friendsinart.org/> (https://www.friendsinart.org/>). AI-Generated Transcript Opinions expressed on ACB media are those of the respective program contributors and cannot be assumed to serve as endorsements of products or views by friends in art, the American Council of the Blind, their elected officials, or staff. Friends in Art welcomes you to the Art Parlor, where visually impaired artists of all types will discuss their work. Pull up a chair, bring along your beverage of choice, and listen to thoughtful, stimulating conversations with visually impaired artists in all media and from all parts of the world. And now... Hi everyone, this is Annie Chiappetta, President of Friends in Art, and this is the Art Parlor. And tonight we have a very special guest, Jessica Tomlinson. And we're going to talk about pretty much all different kinds of stuff relating to creativity and music and being an artist, that kind of stuff. Jessica, welcome. How are you today? I am very good, excited to talk creativity with you as I enjoy learning about lots of different media. as you will hear, I do enjoy dabbling in many different things and I enjoy hearing about other people's creative practice as well. Excellent. Excellent. So how did you first decide you wanted to be a part of the performing arts? Was it something that you like to do as a kid? Was it, you know, when you were in high school? How did that develop for you? So I have always been very fascinated by and very attuned to sound because with people's five senses the brain tends to pick one or two to prioritize. Technical geeks will think of this as being like a computer's IRQs, meaning is the keyboard or the mouse, the primary input device. So most people, their primary input sense is sight, but I was born with underdeveloped optic nerves or optic nerve hypoplasia. So sound has always been my primary sense that I focus on. And then the sense of touch is kind of secondary and then maybe seeing is a kind of third because I do have some low vision. So I would make up words for sounds like if someone were to scrape a chair across the floor, I would say that's like calling it huge or radio static sounded a lot like frizz, frizz, frizz. So I saw musicians kind of from afar, but I didn't have any role models when I was very young, so I didn't really think of it as something I could do. However, when I became a teenager and started going to local concerts, I saw the front of House mixing console, which is the large board at the position where the engineer is able to balance the levels from all the different instruments. And when I saw and heard and was told that that was an actual job that some people do, I was completely hooked. I was single-minded throughout my teenage years that I was going to have a career in that field. And I went to a trade school. I went to full sale university back then it was called full sale real world education in Orlando. And I did I graduated from the recording arts program. And I found it very fascinating. I learned a lot of incredible things. I picked up a lot of general standard knowledge about recording equipment and how it's connected in something we call signal flow for how signal goes from the microphone to the preamp through the mixing console to the outboard gear. And finally, at that time, we were mostly using tape machines. Now we have programs on the computers called digital audio workstations that double as the tape recorder, the multi-track, the mixing console, and even the outboard effects gear too. So all that is in the computer. How many of those digital audio workstations are you trained in or that you know of? that you have knowledge of. I've used different ones over the years. I cannot say that I am expert in a lot of the ones that I used earlier. My very first one was called Cool Edit Pro from Adobe, now Adobe Audition. I used digital performer for a little while there. At Full Sail I was taught about Pro Tools and Logic. Then I used a Cubase for a while there. And now my DAW of choice is Reaper. And I feel much more comfortable with Reaper today. I can do, I consider more with it than I have been able to with any DAW in the past. And why is that? Because number one, it has such a flexible workflow, which I do understand can contribute to a steep learning curve if someone is just getting started. you are able to set it up and customize it the way you want it to work. And the OSARA, OS-A-R-A extension, I don't exactly know what the acronym stands for, but it provides for very deep functionality using a screen reader. So I am able to close my eyes and use my QWERTY keyboard, and I also now use a a control surface, which is a little mini mixing board with faders on it, except no audio goes through it. It's just a giant mouse. It's a tactile surface to control the reaper environment with and do a lot of things, not only editing spoken content, but also mixing music and recording music, which is my passion. And I can record MIDI into it as well and use a lot of virtual instruments, playing a piano like keyboard. Right. Are you on the MIDI? Are you on the MIDI list? I am not. I am on the Reapers Without Peepers list when I get time to pop over there. I know that there is a MIDI list. I'm not sure if it's still, you know, it's, but I don't know how to subscribe to it, but I will find out for you and send it to you. I'll do some searching. There is a mega stash of accessible resources that the Reaper community publishes. So I will check in there to see if I can find it as well. Also just a note, I don't know too much what it's gonna be like yet, but I have been able to attend a few meetings of the MIDI Association Special Interest Group on accessibility and they are currently developing MIDI 2.0. Interesting. They are trying to incorporate text-based screen reader prompts through that and some other cool nifty stuff yet to be seen down the road. So we have something to look forward to. That is really cool because I know a couple of people that love MIDI and are very dedicated to it. I'm not sure if it's still on the Friends and Art website, but we may have a link to the MIDI list on the website, but I haven't... I'm not sure. I still have to check because I don't use MIDI. So what would you say to somebody who maybe wants to start out as an audio engineer, do something for their personal enjoyment? How would they start? What kind of, where would they go? I mean, not, yeah. Yeah. That really depends on what they would like to do because there are many subfields. There are many little niches within the field of audio or maybe it's niches. I don't know. There is live sound. Yeah, there's live sound. So there is ways to support musicians that are on stage. There is home studio recording and mixing, which is what a lot of people do because we can set up our environments and not have people moving our stuff all the time and really get familiar with one set of gear and push it to its potential. There's also post-production where you support film and TV shows. There's sound design for sound effects for those shows. There's dialogue editing. There's actually audio description editing as well. If you look into the audio description projects. So there are lots and lots of ways to get involved with sound. I would say the first thing would be if you know anybody who also has an interest in the field to ask them to find out, first of all, what part of the industry are they involved in, what has worked for them, what tools they use, and then just because the tools work for somebody else doesn't necessarily mean that they're gonna work for you. So one of the reasons why we have so many different types of gear and DAWs and things is because everybody works and processes differently. So the path that many people are probably gonna wanna take is like a home studio situation so that they can record and mix either their own music or have some collaborations with friends. So you need a couple of things and you don't need to acquire these all at once. You need either a computer or a tablet. There are some that work on iOS, but I'm not as familiar with them. I know GarageBand is a really good one that some people start with on iOS and Mac, but either a computer or a tablet, a good set of headphones or speakers so that you can hear clearly what you're doing, preferably in a good listening environment that doesn't have a bunch of echo. But that's a whole other discussion. So my room here, you can hear that echo. So that echo is going to affect and color what you're hearing. So you're hearing way too much of one frequency. You'll cut it in the mix and then somebody else will be listening in another environment and they will be like, hey, wait a minute, that sounds like there's a hole in that. So I think the key is good monitoring, which means listening on either headphones or speakers. But even if you, whatever you have, whatever you start with, when you make a mix, when you make a musical track or a spoken content, take that track and go listen to it on as many different sound systems as you can. So play it in your friend's car. Notice I didn't say it in your car. Unless you have one and you have some on the drives. Play it on your phone. Play it on if you still have a Walkman. Play it on that. Play it on your home stereo system. play it on your tinny clock radio to just get a really good sense for how it's going to sound in all those different environments. So that's important for what reason? That is important so that you can maybe not necessarily optimize it extremely for one environment over the others, but you can get a good overall balance to make your mix sound good on a lot of those different systems. Gotcha. Okay. And another cool thing is you have to, a lot of people, most people mix in stereo. It's important to check your mix in mono. Yeah, I already know. Yes, I know that. I found that by accident. No one told me that. I'm like, why is this happening? Because I have a very simple, I have a two-channel device and, you know, I've got a nice headset with a mic and I'm like, oh, I have to go do that now? Right. So in Reaper, the key command for switching your master track to mono is shift plus F9. Just so that you can hear if there's any wonkiness. But back to the list of things that one could start out with. And again, not all at the same time. Don't feel like you have to do this all overnight. Computer, which is the brain, DAW, which is the software, monitoring, which is headphones or speakers, you're probably going to need some kind of audio interface, which is a box that manages the input and output of sound to and from your computer. I have a Mo2M2, which has two XLRs on the front and then a couple different outputs on the back. And that also does my MIDI in and out as well, although a lot of MIDI controllers have USB these days so you can plug the MIDI through USB directly into your computer. But for audio, for microphones, an audio interface is definitely the way to go. And there's a lot of different ones on the market. And then just explore different microphones. Because microphone- What do you use? I use a couple of different Chippodipo dynamic microphones. OK. And I also have a blue, a baby blue, um, road NT one condenser mic that I use when I really want to record something quiet and soft and subtle. Oh, okay. When you first start out, like, like you said, you know, don't get these things all at one time. I assume that, you know, the price ranges and the availability of things. My Ruby cost me a pretty penny, but, um, yes, I have one of those two. All right. So what's your advice about starting slow and inexpensively? So check out trial versions of software to determine what you like and what works best with the way you process information and the way you work. So I have heard that the accessibility in Ableton has come a really long way in recent years. Also Reaper is amazing, but I'm very biased. Logic, I've heard people that use Logic and that's pretty good. GarageBand is also a great way to get started and just learn some concepts because all of these DAW programs do similar things, but they have slightly different ways of getting it to do the same thing. Like they all have multiple tracks. They all have ways to either put audio or MIDI on a track. They all have various ways to mix your various tracks and put effects on them. So it's just about trying different environments to see maybe what's gonna work best for the way you work. And also think about what kind of content or what kind of music do you wanna create? If you wanna be somebody who makes beats, who makes hip hop, then definitely maybe virtual instruments like a lot of drum samples are gonna be what you're gonna wanna focus on more than say various different microphones. I mean, I still recommend everybody have one good microphone at some point, but you might not need to start with that. If you have a software program, a DAW, that you find that works for you, maybe a good set of headphones, and look for some free virtual instrument plugins that you can play either with a MIDI keyboard, a MIDI drum pad, if that's more your style. Even your QWERTY keyboard can serve as a MIDI keyboard in a pinch. It's not velocity sensitive, meaning you don't get loud and soft based on your touch, but you can get notes to sound so that you can hear kind of what you're doing. Right, the basic rhythms and those kinds of things. Right. Yeah. - Okay. So, SurgeXT, if you like synthesizers, which I absolutely do, I have absolutely fallen down the rabbit hole of being in love with synthesis and learning about all those things. SurgeXT is fantastic as a synth, but there are lots of other free plugins that you can explore, not only free, but we also have to keep in mind what's gonna be accessible too, which is kind of a bummer because I think that more of the industry needs to focus on making their products usable by all their consumers. And we're just trying to spread awareness about accessibility a lot. Yes, it's getting better. It's slow though. It's slow. But I think as the general software, I guess programming and I guess the basics become easier, then I think the accessibility is becoming easier as well. I remember when I would ask for something, some kind of coding or something to make something accessible in the workplace and I'd get moans and groans and oh, it's too much and takes so long and blah, blah, blah. And now it's like, okay, well, we'll work on it. We'll get it to you in a little while. So I think the attitudes are changing, but it's slow. Yes, that's very good. It needs to be quicker. And I also wanna put a plug in, there isn't an open registration yet, but the Audio Engineering Society is going to be holding a small virtual conference on accessibility, July 9th and 10th, and they're going to have lots of different presenters in many of those different areas of the sound industry that I was talking about. They're going to have some people from live. They're going to have some artists. They're going to have some people that create software and just lots of people presenting, telling the general industry why accessibility is important and to listen and how to implement it. That's excellent. See, that's what's changing. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, excellent. I think we'll, I could talk about this all night, but we need to change the subject a little. So how did you get involved with ACB? So I was involved with ACB because I received a scholarship five or six years ago at the state level when I was going back to school to be a VRT, which is a Vision Rehab Therapist. So audio and music and accessibility has always been a passion of mine, but 20 years ago when I graduated from full sale, we were still in a industry model that revolved around large record labels, large studios, large consoles and large egos. And I kind of had to pivot because I couldn't find a doorway into the industry at that time. So my day job is now teaching blind senior citizens how to use their computers and smartphones. And I still use a lot of my geeky techy problem solving skills with them to help them develop the best solutions for them. But in recent years, the past five or six years, I've definitely started diving back into the audio side of things with organizations like Sound Girls and the AES Accessibility Committee. And like I said before, I'm big into synthesis, so I've done some online streams for Earth Modular Society. And I do have to say, I'm very, very happy and excited to say that I was recently accepted as a pro member to ramped recording artists and music professionals with disabilities. And if any of you out there are making and releasing music or are a professional that works with the music industry in some way, that avenue is also very much open to you as well. If you're familiar with the artist Lachi, I'm so proud of her. I have a single out called Fidget and it's all about celebrating neurodiversity and I'm so happy. That's excellent. And what about Sound Girls? So Sound Girls was a organization that I found while surfing the internet and they were very open and welcoming. They, again, combine women and gender expansive folks and there's some men involved too. You don't have to be a woman to be involved. And they're from every sector of the sound industry, live, post-production, recorded music, corporate audio, which means doing sound to support corporate conventions or political figures or public speakers or that sort of thing. So that's another avenue as well in the sound industry. So they had a virtual conference last December and I went and the networking happened so organically and everybody was just thrilled to be there and speak to the other participants and share what they're up to. There were a number of structured panels and presentations that we could go in and then there were just some drop in casual like unstructured mentoring sessions where people could ask questions. So I found it very rewarding, very delightful. That's wonderful. Did that happen in Tampa? Or did you travel for that? It was virtual. It was on Zoom. It was all virtual. Oh my goodness. So that way people from all over the country and even some people from other countries could attend. That sounds awesome. That's wonderful. It was great. And I made some friends that way. Yeah. Yeah. Networking will never die. That's what I can tell people. matter, even if it becomes a whole virtual experience, we need each other. We must connect because we can't do everything just on our own. The expansiveness of the world and wanting to network and reach out is ever-present, and I will push for that. That is so true. All the time. We are an... You know? Yes, we are an interdependent species. Yes, we are. Yes, we are. So you mentioned your visual status. So do you see color? I do. Thanks, Doc. I see some colors. So color contrast is big in our community. That means the more that two colors are very distinct and different from each other. So for instance, blue and orange or say purple and yellow are opposites on the color wheel. So those colors are very, very distinct and stand out very well. And the brighter and bolder they are, the more likely I am to tell them apart from other colors. However, blue and purple I often mix up, especially if they're kind of light and pastel or yellow and orange and very light lime green I might mix up. So because of that, I, well, first of all, I like to do visual art with a CCTV, which some people also know as a desktop video magnifier. Right. And I work with colored pencils a lot, but I have my pencil box arranged so that the blues are never right next to the purples. And the yellows are never right next to the oranges because that would cause me to mix them up. Like I can read the labels on the pencils, but I put them, I put the yellows next to the blues. I put the purples next to the greens. And then I put the- So the complementary colors. Yes. Yes, okay. That's a really good idea. And that, you know, they just go well together in the first place. So do you actually, do you actually do sketches are drawing drawings or how do you start a project? So sometimes I've always liked to doodle. I would always finish my work in school early and I would be bored. So I would take out my flare pen. I've used flare pens, which are felt tip pens. They're not as wide as Sharpies, but yet they're not as fine as ball points. They're in between and I like them because I can write pretty well in small spaces, but they're also great for drawing. So I would doodle and doodle and doodle. I would draw, I'm not great at drawing people realistic, but I would like to think I'm sort of okay at drawing cartoon characters, like Disney characters or Muffin characters or things like that or fun things, birthday cakes and balloons and party hats and just stuff like that. Oh, wonderful. But the downside is I can't erase if I use a felt tip pen and I've just drawn and I haven't been able to erase. So when I would draw outlines with my felt tip pen, I would start on scrap paper first and I would do it a couple of times on scrap paper and that would be like my practice rounds. And then when I get to the real thing on good paper, I'm like, okay, this is really for real, let's do it. But now I've discovered that I don't have to necessarily draw all the time with my felt tip pen. I can also draw with the colored pencil. So let's say if I'm drawing Cookie Monster, he's blue, I would draw with the blue colored pencil. So that way if I make a mistake, I would err on the side of smaller so that if he needs to be bigger, I'll just put more blue on the outside and nobody will ever know. Oh, wow. If that makes sense. Yeah, it does make sense because I, you know, that's kind of how I come about my own work, you know, just in general. I do a lot of paper, mixed media, art, and it's always easier to work on smaller pieces than it is to work on a big piece. Because if you make a mistake on a large piece, it's a big mistake, right? Just in terms of physical space. But if you make a mistake on a small piece, you're like, "Oh, it's a little mistake. I can cover it over or I could do something different." So I get what you're saying for sure. Yes. Yeah, that's right. So I do a lot of volunteering for a girls rock camp here in St. Pete where I live and sometimes I'll draw whimsical posters and stuff for them. Oh, cool. So the recent one that I drew is a witch riding on a microphone stand instead of a broom and And she's holding the microphone and there's a speech bubble and she's saying, "Hex, hex, one, two, three." That's very, very cool. Yeah. Instead of "check one, two, three." Yeah, "check one, two, three, hex, hex, one, two, three." Oh, nice. So have you always lived in Florida? I have. So I'm one of these rare people where I've lived in the Tampa Bay area all my life. I have traveled other places. I've been to a few ACB conventions. I've been to a few relatives, home cities. I've been to a few other functions in other places, but I always seem to come back here. I don't like cold. I don't like snow. I like the beach and the sun and the water. And yes, it gets miserable and brutal in the summer. And we're starting to come to our miserable, brutal heat season just now. Okay. But it's worth it for like mid October through April, through the end of April. It's really nice. It was actually just really nice a few weeks ago. Yeah, I used to visit Tampa. My in-laws had a condo and I really enjoyed my time there. So did they. They would escape all of the New York weather. Yes. And then we would use that as home base for our vacations with the kids, you know, and then we would drive to Disney and then come back. Yeah, so it was a lot of fun. I like Florida. Yeah, my relatives there and stuff. So yeah. Yeah, that's great. One other thing if I could, one other thing I want to say about drawing, I I'm not the best at it, but I recently learned I can use Procreate on the iPad. I was going to ask you that, like, do you, oh, so. So with that, you can pretty much pick any style of line of any weight that you want. So I can pick a line that's heavy, like my flare pen. And I can erase. If I do something I don't like it, I can tap with two fingers and that's like an undo and you can erase the last stroke he made. So it's really cool. And I can zoom it in as large as I want to. So it's like using paper on my CCTV. Oh, that's really. Do you know if there are any instruction classes about doing that at any level, like, you know, like adult ed or because that would be really. I think that a lot of people with low vision would, it would have really helped them get their, uh, confidence, you know. Yeah. I don't know if they're necessarily classes. I do know that voiceover has come a long way with speaking, what's on the toolbars recently. Um, and even in some of the color palettes, they're starting to name the colors because that's one thing I wrote to them and asked them to do. Um, a while ago, like a year or more ago, I said, Hey, I have low vision and I use voiceover for most things, but I want to be able to Draw and use this app and you know, do art as well. And I'm having a hard time telling your color palettes apart because, you know, they're not arranged like my pencil boxes. So would you consider putting labels on these and eventually one day they did and now at least some of them have names. So when you tap them, they say the name. I'm going to have to check this out because I have an iPad and I've always been hesitant to try anything because I've been disappointed so many times. You download an app and then you find out it's not accessible. Right. And then... It is a bit of a dance though because I have to turn voiceover off in order to draw and interact with the canvas because it doesn't have direct touch the way GarageBand has. But then I need to turn voiceover on in order to interact with the toolbars to be sure what I'm touching up there. I got you. So it's a little bit of a balancing act, a little bit of a dance. But if you have your triple press of your side button shortcut set up for voiceover, it could potentially work. Okay. All right. Well, I'll see if I could try it out and let you know. But my daughter is sighted. Maybe we can tutel around together and see what we can do. Yeah. That would be great. that kind of thing. I like that stuff. It's just like, oh, it's no big deal. We'll just try it out and we'll see what we get. That's always a fun thing to do. Yeah. So I forgot to ask you, you're a Windows user, right? That's correct. So the old joke goes that Mac users can say, I don't do Windows. You know, like I don't do beds. I don't do Windows. Yeah, I don't do Windows. I know. Yeah, but I do. I've done Windows all my life. Hmm. Yeah. Me too. But yet we have we have, you know, we do touch on Apple accessibility with our iPads and our phones. Definitely. I always do really good. Yeah. Yeah. I hope they continue to be for sure. Yes. Yeah. Thinking back to like any kind of challenges you think you've had over the years with any of your goals or professional goals or personal goals. Is there anything you'd like to share that maybe you think would help other people listening tonight or whenever this comes out? Well, certainly with releasing my own music, there's a lot of moving parts when you want to release something. Now, when I say release, I just mean make it available so that people can stream it, maybe people can buy it. Release means something different now than it used to mean. So when you do a music release, there's the writing or the composing of the music that happens first. Right. Then there's the recording of the music, then there's the mixing, then there's the mastering. Mastering is making the final mix sound its best on whatever medium it's going to play on. So for instance, if you're gonna put out a vinyl record and you master for vinyl, you are optimizing your final mix for a record and a record player. But mastering you can think of like how when somebody paints with pastel, like pastel crayons or something, they spray this clear coat on it when it's finished called Fixative. My mom was a visual artist and she used to do pastels and then when she was done, she would take her painting outside and spray it with this clear stick to itness substance that would keep the pastel from like flaking off and getting all over everywhere. So that's what mastering does for audio, I think. And then the next step is the putting it onto the distributor who's going to put it into the music streaming stores like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, so that everybody and all your friends can hear you. And some people choose to also put it other places like I am on band camp for example, which is a place where your fans can go and directly buy your music. Some people also put it on like other, you know, bits of social media. So another part of the process is the marketing of the release. The, oh, and I forgot the cover art. The cover art is a, you know, another step of the release. So marketing involves telling all your friends and everybody you know and everybody you've ever networked with basically that, "Hey people, I did something new. Come look, come listen. I've got music that I have out. Come play my music. Come listen to it. Come buy it on Bandcamp." But that only goes so far in your own personal network. Then you have to research and actively look for music blogs, music podcasts, online or terrestrial radio shows that are within your genre or your music style that focus on the style that you are making who might write about or talk about or play your music. Because that's how you expose yourself to a wider audience. And then there is also if you're a musician who plays live, there's also the going out and playing shows to let people see you and hear you in person. So all of those steps, I guess, are a wide, extremely roundabout way to say that some challenges have involved creating cover art and photographs and visual content to go on social media. That's been a common refrain that I've heard from a lot of blind and visually impaired artists. is also the challenge of navigating all these blasted websites that may have varying degrees of accessibility. So, not really sure which ones are the best for screen reader users because I do use a screen magnification as well as a screen reader. I use NVDA plus the Windows magnifier, but just the visual concentration with the magnifier to like 4x or something of okay, what corner of the website did they put the login button? What page do I have to go to to see my release stats or get the shareable link I can post? Or there's some other things you can do too. I mean this can get really involved. You can register if you original compositions, you can register with a performance rights organization such as BMI or ASCAP. And then not only that, you have to register with the mechanical licensing company and then you need publishing. What is a mechanical license company? So that is the organization that collects your royalties. Mind you, when we're talking about royalties, unfortunately we're talking about... tiny fractions of a penny for every play. Sounds like that with writers. So like every time somebody listens to my book over download for a library, I get 34 cents. Yes, well this is like maybe a half a cent or a tenth of a cent for every stream on like a Spotify or something. But it's mostly about just learning the process so that as you gain momentum, it won't be brand new. And mainly, as you gain momentum, you won't have some shyster coming to you, claiming to do it for you, when really he's keeping it all for himself. It's important to know about how the process works. But anyway, the mechanical licensing company is what collects on behalf of songwriters and composers when the song or composition is played on streaming or radio or radio. Oh, okay, gotcha. All right. So I'm just as complicated as the book writing business. Absolutely, so I would also recommend reading up on music business, music rights, just so that you're aware of, you know, what the different kinds of rights are so that you know what you have, you know what you are possibly entitled to claim as your own when you write and create music. Yeah. What about, do you ever, you ever refer to anybody for like, have you ever had to like, go through contracts, read contracts, find print, those kinds of things. I know when we're writers, we have to do that all the time. So I really haven't. I'm not quite that advanced as an artist yet. Now, I know that it will happen if I do collaborations with people. If I do hire people or am hired by people. So I do know that that's a thing that's in my future. The contracts that I have read are for when I've done accessibility testing for companies in their software, they'll often have non-disclosure agreements. Yeah. Or if I'm in a research study, there is a consent to participate contract. And so those are important to know about as well. So if I've been testing someone's product, am I allowed to say that I've been doing that? Am I allowed to name it? Or, you know, when would I be allowed to talk about it, if ever? Yes. All that stuff is excellent practice for where you're going. And I know it was for me when I first started out. And now it just gets... In a way, it's easier to know what to expect, but also, you know, now we have a whole new type of, like, people who want to scam you and stuff that we didn't have before, who'd be very, very careful about who you say yes to. and it's unfair. Yeah, that's right. So cautious. People will offer you, yeah, people will offer you the world on a silver platter and it's important to just ask questions. Yes, yes. You know, be critical because it's your work that you're being critical and protective over and don't ever think that you're being too protective or too critical because the one time you don't ask the question or you just say no thank you, could be a big mistake. Right. In our writers community, we're having, a lot of us are independently published and I get, I don't know, three or four emails a week saying somebody, "I love your writing and we want to represent you." Blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, "Oh, go away." It's just not true. I mean, I know, you know, it's just not true. So, right, all kinds of scamming going on. I guess we're getting up to, you know, closing out and, you know, is there anything else you'd like to say regarding where you'd like to go in the future, where you see yourself maybe the next five years or so. And we're going to also probably have some clips of your EP on. So you want to talk about that? Yes. Give it a little push. So it is called Rise to the Occasion, Fall into Bliss. And I got that name because synthesizers have a component called an envelope that has a rise and fall parameter. And that's what determines the time that it takes for a sound to come out of silence and return back into silence. So it's sort of a pun on synthesizer envelopes. It's an electronic ambient meditative. It's a good thing to put on when you are frazzled and you want to relax or if you want to meditate or you want to fall asleep. It is available on Bandcamp that is really the best for artists. You can listen for free, I think a couple times, but even if you don't want to purchase it from Bandcamp, if you go in and click follow, then that will make the algorithm kind of think I'm popular or something. And that way you'll get on my mailing list so that when I have something new coming out, you will be the first to know about it. But I do realize, I have heard from some people that Bandcamp can be hard to use with a screen reader alone. So just to make it easier for people and also so that more people can find me, the EP along with my other work is also available on the major streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple, Amazon, whatever music service you have, you can tell your favorite digital voice assistant of choice to play Jessica Tomlinson or to play Rise to the Occasion, Fall into Bliss. All right. Well, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for that. Before we move on, this is Jason and I'm here to provide you with some demo tracks that Jessica provided and we're going to start off with Thawing Dreams. And this next one is called Mama Creeps. Thank you Jessica for your talent and music. Now let's finish up with Art Parler. Yeah so anything else you'd like to say before we wrap up? Yes, I look forward to maybe being able to collaborate with other musicians. I definitely want to be doing more live performances in the next coming few years. I have some smallish instruments that hopefully I can travel with and do similar kind of ambient meditative music with a yoga teacher or a sound bath to be able to provide a nice soft backdrop. I also like to sing and play the piano. I do cover songs and I do enjoy mixing for other people as well. All right. So would you, if somebody wanted you to mix for them, what would be the typical way to start a conversation on that? You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, Jessica Tomlinson, I think on Instagram, I'm v_vi_artist or my email address is JT soundtech S-O-U-N-D-T-E-C-H at Verizon.net (http://Verizon.net). Okay, excellent. All right, well, thank you so much for coming tonight and sharing your life and all of your talents. And I really appreciate that bit on the iPad. I'm going to check it out. Yeah, thank you. Oh, and I would also like to be able to add synth lines to other people's tracks. That would be a very cool thing as well. Oh, interesting. All right. So there we go. Have a good evening and thank you so much for joining us. And I'll let you know when it drops onto ACB Media. Okay, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the thoughtful interview. Sure. Be well. Take care. Bye. Art Parlor is brought to you by Friends in Art and ACB Media. It airs several times a week on ACB Media One. To listen and for a full schedule, go to acbmedia.org/one (http://acbmedia.org/one). Art Parlor is also available as a podcast. Just search for Art Parlor in your favorite podcast app. We'd love to hear from you. You can email us at artparlor@friendsinart.org. And please feel free to check out our website, www.friendsinart.org (http://www.friendsinart.org). Thank you so much for listening and for your support. We'll be back next month.

3. 

   2 Apr 2026

   The Art Parlor for April, 2026 Presents: NVision Guitars!

   Episode Notes Welcome to The Art Parlor for April, brought to you by Friends in Art (https://www.friendsinart.org/)! It's been a spell and we are very glad to be back! Join us for an inspiring conversation with the creators of NVision Guitars, a mother-and-son team building custom adaptive guitars for musicians with disabilities. From tactile designs for blind players to ergonomic solutions for mobility challenges, their work is opening doors to music for everyone. Hear their story, their passion, and how they’re redefining accessibility in the arts. AI-Generated Transcript Jason Opinions expressed on ACB Media are those of the respective program contributors and cannot be assumed to serve as endorsements of products or views by Friends in Art, the American Council of the Blind, their elected officials, or staff. Friends in Art welcomes you to the Art Parlor, where visually impaired artists of all types will discuss their work. Pull up a chair, bring along your beverage of choice, and listen to thoughtful, stimulating conversations with visually impaired artists in all media and from all parts of the world. And now, here's your host, Anne Chiappetta. Ann Welcome everyone to the Friends and Art, Art Parlor podcast. I'm Ann Chiappetta, your president, and I'm joined tonight by some special guests. But before I get to them, I also want to let you know that Meghan Downing, one of our board members, is here to help us welcome our guests from Envision Guitars. So we have Renee and Tristan. And I just want to welcome you guys. I know we had you featured on our blog at www.friendsinart.org/news (http://www.friendsinart.org/news). If anybody wants to go there and check you guys out for your interview. So welcome, welcome, welcome. Renee Thank you. Thank you for allowing us to be here. Ann Sure. So you're from Iowa, right? Tristan Yep, we're from Ankeny, Iowa. So just a suburb outside of Des Moines. Ann So my new guide dog's name is Iowa, by the way. So really? Tristan Really? How did you know? Ann He was born in the I litter. And that's the name that they picked. So. Oh, okay. Yeah. I just thought that was a little, a cute little thing to let you guys know. Before we get into like the questions, could you give us a little bit of your history, how you started your business and maybe some of the reasons why? Sure, yeah, absolutely. Renee Well, Tristan started playing guitar when he was about 10 years old. And he's always had a love for guitar and played it and kind of messed around with building guitars all through high school. And anyway, about a year and a half, two years ago, I was having some health issues and Tristan was taking me back and forth to Mayo. And we just really got into some deep talks about life and the purpose of life. And I had recently retired from the military. So I had been running a Christmas decorating business that I had to actually quit due to the health issues. And so we were just talking over just what the future holds for both of us actually. And I said, you know, what would make you the happiest? What do you think would you would find most purpose in? And he said, I would find most purpose in building guitars. And that was just kind of out of the blue because I never knew that he actually just wanted to build guitars for a living. And I said, Well, you know, what's stopping you from doing that? And he said, I don't know. And I said, Well, what would that look like? And so we brainstormed on up to Mayo and we talked about how my dad, who was a quadriplegic, had went to Easter Seals and gotten training on leather making and he had gotten some tools from them and he had found his purpose through that. And then Tristan had shared with me that when he was younger, he used to play the guitar with his eyes closed because he was afraid that someday he may not be able to see and he was afraid that he may not be able to play the guitar. And so he'd been doing that for some time. And just on that same vein, we brainstormed the idea of what if we made guitars for people who can't just pull a guitar off of the shelf of a box store and play it. So what if we made guitars for people who have challenges, maybe some low vision or maybe they're blind or maybe they're in a wheelchair and they have spatial considerations or Parkinson's. You know, there's a variety of different challenges face where they can't just take a guitar, like I said, off of the shelf. And you know, as we dug into it, we realized there's actually nothing like that. There's nothing like that out there. There's guitars that look like tech toys, and there's guitars that maybe they have, you know, some tactile markers on them with glue or some homemade type of fashioned material to allow people to kind of use it, but nothing's actually made for people with these challenges. And we thought, well, why won't we, you know, we could do that. And so we have developed various adaptations for our guitars and we built a business around it. And that's what we do. So Tristan is the luthier and I do the management, the sales, the marketing. He of course helps me with a lot of that as well. But he's our guitar maker and our technical expert. And I try to help anywhere that I can to free up his time so that he can do what he does best. Ann Wow. So Tristan, how did you learn your craft? Tristan It wasn't necessarily like a linear learning system, I would say. A lot of times with a kind of niche craft like that, you have to really stretch out your arms to whoever you can get information from that will really benefit your ability. So whether that's from reaching out to local Luthiers and local shops, to ask them how can we get better at our craft, what are we missing, what are the things that we're nailing, countless hours of watching YouTube videos and different tutorials, and then a lot and a lot of practice in the garage and trials and errors and learning from those errors. So it's a very compound kind of learning for it. you have to pull from just multiple different sources. Ann Do you feel that some of this is like natural for you in eight? And then some of it is, you know, you've got to learn how to hone your craft. Do you feel like you were, you were kind of like, you had it in you, you just had to get it, get it to the point where you, you know, get it out there. Tristan And definitely, yeah, I think that I think that it's one of those things that when you have a passion for something, you're going to find a way to make it so you know how to do it. But so I don't think that it necessarily takes like someone that has these innate abilities compared to another. It's who's willing to put in the hard work and who's actually passionate about what they're doing. So it's, you can apply it to anything that anyone's passionate about. It's just the ability to keep moving forward with it and keep persisting even while you're waiting. Ann Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so I have a curious little weird question. Are you the one that drinks the monsters while you're working? because there's a picture in the background. The monster drinks are there. Tristan I've been trying to cut down on that a little bit. But yeah. Renee To be fair, even though they're completely not what I would recommend, Tristan was working a full-time job up until not too long ago. So he was working the full-time job while doing a vision. Jason Oh, wow. Renee He was sleeping literally about four hours a night. Yeah, I was sleeping like four to five hours a night for a good year. Yeah, but we finally were blessed with the opportunity to go full time. And so he's been getting more sleep. So OK. Ann That's pretty good. I was. Well, yeah. Sometimes I didn't expect that to be described on the photo when I put him put it through my describer and I was like, oh, it was really cute. Anyway, Megan, do you have any questions? Meghan Yeah. Hi, guys. I'm Megan. It's nice to be on this call with you. I love so far what I'm hearing and learning about what you guys are doing. I guess I want to give a little bit of background on kind of where I fit into this a little bit, but I'm blind. I started losing my vision when I was nine to a progressive eye condition. I'm 24 now, so it's been a little bit over half my life now since I've lost my vision. I started playing fiddle when I was like four, and then music was always something like I could do Well, my vision was decreasing as I got older. And so I just love your mission of like figuring out ways for people with any ability to be able to play music, because I think music is one of those things where it's accessible to like everyone, whether it's listening or playing. And this process of losing my vision and music helping me through that led me to I went to Berkeley College of Music, And I actually play guitar. I went to Berkeley for guitar. Renee That's awesome. Meghan Yes, big fans of Berkeley. Yeah, I was really blessed to be able to-- I was like my dream school. And I started playing guitar when I was younger as well. It was probably my second or third instrument I started playing and fell in love with guitar. And so I kind of put the fiddle aside. And guitar is my main passion. So when Annie told me you guys were coming on and I learned about what you guys were doing, I was like, oh my gosh, that's amazing. because I actually, I studied, I'm a music therapist. Jason And so I work with folks all that like literally Meghan every single day that could use products like what you guys are doing. I worked in like neuro rehabilitation with stroke patients and I still work with people who are brain injured. And it's funny that you said something about, you know, I just got a grant from the Christopher Reeves Foundation to do a project with people with paralysis. And I know that you mentioned your dad was a quadriplegic and I'm working a lot with those folks right now or I'm about to start. So I'm like really interested in what you guys are doing and I would love to know like if you found a way to adapt for people with extreme paralysis and like what your process is for, for kind of like hearing about people's abilities and how you like can adjust with those disabilities and how like the process goes of making those guitars. Tristan Okay. Yeah, so as far as full paralysis, that's not something that we have gone to quite yet. As far as spatial accommodation, the way that we try to account for that is we take measurements of the different parts of the space that the guitar will really be making contact with the individual. So we'll take use of different contour gauges to get a general sense of what space is available to put for the curvature of the guitar and then applying it in there so that way it fits that individual within their space. Renee That's really cool. Yeah. Sorry, go ahead. I'm sorry. We offer four different adaptable customizations. So can you explain those? Tristan Yeah. I mean, so we do have a few different adaptions that we're trying to really implement into our instruments to help with just different things that could really make you not be able to enjoy guitar as much as just a kind of store guitar, I guess you could say. So as far as spatial accommodation, it was the contour gauges. The other thing that we take into account is weight reduction, so chambering out the body so that way there's not as much stress on the body when playing. Another thing that we really have been diving into is the tactile markers on our guitar for low vision and blindness. What we've been really focusing on is putting fret markers on the back of the neck that we'll make it so you can really just navigate where your hand is playing on the fretboard. just as you would usually use fret markers, but these would be more tactile for the back of your thumb to kind of guide your hand. Then along with that, we add different components to the guitar itself for better navigation. So our different knobs will use two different textured knobs for the volume compared to the tone. So that way as you're navigating which knob you're wanting to activate, it's just a little bit quicker from the feel of it. Meghan Oh, that's huge. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Wow. Because that's something I really struggle with, getting a new guitar or playing someone else's guitar or even my own guitars that I've had forever. I forget, you know, like which one's the tone or which one's the volume. And yeah, that's super, that's amazing to hear what you guys are doing with that, especially with low vision. Tristan Yep. Our goal is just to make it so it's a navigatable guitar. And so that way you can really just get the same feeling whether you're getting the vision of the fretboard itself or not. Meghan And do you notice that like when you make these adaptations, especially with like the size or the weight reduction, do you notice like, how are you kind of combating the loss of maybe like tone or volume of the, the like resonance of the guitar? Yeah. Yeah. Tristan So right now our guitars are exclusively electric guitars. We will be getting into acoustics and nylons down the road. It's just with a time constraint of having a full time job at the time and then also building the guitars, I wasn't able to get into acoustics and nylons where that weight reduction would affect more of that tone. - Yeah. - Since a lot of them are running through your pickups. Don't get me wrong, there probably is some tonal drop off from the chambering, but since a lot of it is from the hardware and from the really the electronics that you put within the guitar that has I would say kind of more of an influence on what sound you're going to get out of it. Meghan Oh yeah that totally that totally makes sense. Wow and and then are you for like future in the expansion of what you guys are doing like obviously you kind of just mentioned how you're doing full time work with Envision now, but how what do you see what are your goals for the future of Tristan where you guys are headed? Yeah, um, so our goal is to it's really what we're doing now and it's uh to keep creating guitars for anybody and everybody that wants to be able to play them. So whether it's the player that is has a 13 guitar collection that wants something just really special to them or if it's someone who needs this tool so that way they can pursue their passion that they've been going for. Really, what we would mark as successful is just the people that we get to connect with and the difference that we get to make. Meghan And are you guys getting funding from grants right now? Are you able to apply for those? Where are you getting the resources that you need to be able to function right now? Tristan I would say it's a very mixed bag. So yes, we do the guitars as our main exclusive thing, but we do have some supporting pieces of our business that we call our different arms just to make it so we are able to focus on the guitars. So whether that's selling handmade picks, different, we also hit a lot of different vendor shows for some of our other handmade art and stuff like that. Renee Right now we don't have any grants or any, there's no funding coming in besides what we sell. And what I've been doing to kind of get this up and going is I've been hand carving picks made out of the wood from the scraps of his guitars. I know it sounds very tedious and it is, but that's what moms do. So I hand etched them and they do very well at the craft shows. And it kind of opened the doors for some of the guitar stores. Like I would go in and offer up these picks and then we were able to get our guitars into stores. Right now, believe it or not, we are really donating a lot of our products. 10% of our sales go to donations to nonprofits in our area. Um, so I wouldn't say it's extremely lucrative for us, but that's okay because that's not really our purpose. And we, we have a different purpose in mind and we have a different outlook, I think. And so we're just moving straight ahead with that and we'll get there when we do. So if that makes sense, I hope that makes sense. Meghan Oh yeah. Yeah, that totally makes sense. Ann Yeah. So this is Annie. I was reading about your picks. Can you tell us a little more about how that began? Like you talked about making them out of nuts. - Oh yeah, yeah, I did that too. Renee Yep. So I make the picks out of wood and nuts. So the wood ones, of course, like I said, came from the offshoots of his guitar. So we've got Ebony, you know, some of the harder woods. - Right. - You can such. And then also I've been making them out of Tagua nuts and they're really, really cool. They're a nut from South Africa and they are very, very similar to animal ivory in terms of strength and-- - Wow. - And so obviously we can't use animal ivory nor should we, but if you were to compare it, it's similar in, it's cellulose, right? So it's very hard and it's not something you're gonna break. It's organic vegan, all the good stuff. And it just kind of forms to your thumb and finger when you're using it. And then at times there's certain ones that I cut the center out of so that you can have a better grip should you have issues with grip. But those are really hot seller to be honest with you. We sell out of those pretty quick. And so the nut is sliced and then I just sand it down using five different kinds of sandpaper. And then we sell those as well. And that's something that we're doing now and we may continue to do that but really we want to focus only on guitars but for right now, That's one of the things that we do to get us where we're going. Right. Right. Because we've only been doing this for one year as a business. And so we're building up to where we want to go. Yeah. And it's just a big way of helping. Ann Yeah. It's like you do what you can, right? Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I had a question about like how much can you, in terms of weight for one of guitars, how much can you take out without compromising the guitars, you know, working and performing and... Tristan Yeah, definitely. So right now, we're finishing our chamber guitars at about around seven pounds. Eventually we're going to start making headless guitars as well, which will really bring down the weight. But right now, they sit around seven pounds if not a little bit lighter, which is usually about a pound or two lighter than your standard guitar that you would get from a store? Ann Wow. Wow. That's very interesting because that's one of the things that I don't think people understand about electric guitars, that they're heavy. They're heavy. You pick one up and they're, you know, you've got to be able to like build up your muscles and you know, your body and so how, you know, I was very interested in that. If you adapted one of these guitars for someone who is in a wheelchair, is there anything else that you use with the guitar, like a mat that goes across their lap or something that grips or anything like that to help keep it balanced from sliding or if they can't do a strap? Tristan Yeah. So we haven't done anything like that quite yet. The way that we really go about accommodating for those spatial accommodations is by using our contour gauges. So we'll take a contour measurement of both of their legs as well as the surrounding area and then a one across their sternum as well to know where the actual wood of the body will be sitting across you to make sure it is conformed to your figure. Ann Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Renee Yeah. Sorry. I'm sorry. - Oh, go ahead. - It's very, very ergonomically fit to any individual's body. You can-- Tristan It's got three different playing positions. So you have a upright playing position, a cross lap playing position, and then you can also put it across your other leg. So it is versatile in the way that you can have it within a seated space. And then along with getting the measurements of the individual, that really just helps accommodate for what we're shooting for. Ann Oh, wow. Have you ever considered making a video that explains, you know, like, you know, the different positions and then demo them? Have you ever considered that? Tristan We are working on that. We're trying to get more and more content out about how we adapt the guitars. Right now it is kind of a two-armed business in a way with them, 'cause we have our player guitars that we do put out in the stores, but then we have our augmented guitars as well that we have these adaptions to. So it's really just us having more time to keep pushing out the information that we're working on. Renee One of the things that one of our clients that was blind really appreciated that we came up with was, we had a client in New Jersey and we have three models. We have the Regatta, we have the Galley, and then we have the Symbiote. And so what we did in order for them to be able to understand the contours of each guitar was we built miniature versions of those guitars and we sent them the templates in the mail and they had holes in them to designate which guitars they were. So they were able to feel all the different contours and how those guitars were built and then communicate back to us, you know, which ones would be best for them and then they could just toss those instead of, you know, like mailing anything back to us or what have you because They were made out of basswood and they were very cheap templates. And then that was just a good way for them to be able to communicate to us. So in our we send these packages with the templates and the gauges so people can easily take you know, measurements of their body and send us back the contours and throw away the templates. And we're trying to make it as easy as possible, but also making it so that people can really get exactly what they want. Because I mean, everybody's needs are going to be different. Everybody's situation is different. And so that that was just something that they really, they really liked about it. Ann That's a really good idea. Renee Yeah, that's a great idea. I love it. Yeah. Yeah, it really worked out well. So that's, that's excellent. Ann How many guitars do you have out in the hands of other people right now? Renee We have about nine. Meghan Oh, cool. And that's including like guitars sold for like able-bodied folks and also adapted guitars. Tristan Correct. Yep. That would be the ones that we donated as well as the ones that we made for just other clients. Renee We're working on five more right now. But again, we have only been in business for one year because we opened last March and he was working full time until a month ago. So we have been struggling to find the time, but we have been working 24/7 to develop these designs because every single model was developed, like we designed and developed them all. And so once we get these next five out, we'll be up to 14, but we know that they're going to continue to grow. And the word has to get out, that's the thing, is the word has to get out that these are even available because nowhere else are these available. They have not been available. And just show that they're out there, then we can start making them. And so we're not afraid of the fact that we've only made nine, because we just have to make sure that people know that to get the message out, basically is what we need to do. Ann Yeah, well, you gotta start somewhere, right? - You do. (laughing) Meghan So I was just thinking, I have so many, I'm like, this is so exciting. It's music to my ears to hear what you guys are doing, 'cause I'm gonna spread the word about you guys and hopefully get more information because I think so many people, when they have a disability, they just like, initially are like, "Oh, I can't do that because of this." But I think as more people become aware of, everything can be adapted. And I love that you guys are starting off. And the fact that you did nine in a year is amazing. Renee Oh, thank you very much. Tristan just developed a guitar for Parkinson's. And-- - Wow. Tristan I wouldn't, yeah, it's, we're taking all the considerations that would really affect your ability to play and trying to instill those into the instrument. Renee Yeah, and so he'll be presenting that at a conference on April 22nd. And so we're really excited about that one too. So that's kind of exciting for us. So that's kind of a new development that we've got going on. Ann Could you talk a little bit more about the adaptations in terms of Parkinson's symptoms and how they would help somebody to play? Tristan Yeah, so when doing research, the things that we really tried to hone in on were the slowness of movement. I believe it's called a Brady, I'm not gonna try to remember the word, I'm gonna totally butcher it. (laughing) It's a slowness of movement as well as the squeeze and the hands and then along with that you have-- Meghan The tremors. Tristan The tremors and the strength of holding the instrument. - Right, yeah. - So some of the accommodations that we're gonna start to implement into this guitar to present would be things like having a shorter scale length. So that way you have larger frets that are not, that way your hand isn't as needed to move around to make the same kind of music, having a multi-scale fretboard, so that way the frets move ergonomically with how your hand would normally go across the fretboard. Meghan Wow. Tristan Lighter weight, so changing up the body as well to make it, so it's just a, you can play it longer for a longer duration of time without it really starting to affect your ability to play. But the thing that we're getting really excited to present about is some of the just kind of modifications that you can do to your own instruments as well as just different techniques that you can do to really help implement just timed playing and everything like that. So one thing we're excited to kind of just really talk about and promote is timed practice with people who are starting to get symptoms of Parkinson's just 'cause you can start with a metronome at a lower BPM and it's not like you're shredding or anything but you're playing a interval note and it's in control And then as you bring up that metronome, you can really just start getting more and more control over that movement, at least over a fixed period of time. So that's something that we kind of wanted to talk about and just kind of spread the word about just 'cause even if you're not getting a guitar from us, but you wanna just be able to play your guitar, it's good information to have. Ann Yeah. Meghan Now there's a lot of research with Parkinson's and like music and music therapy. And it's like, it makes a huge difference in people's lives with Parkinson's. Tristan A lot of studies have really just, really narrowed down the point of, it just benefits the quality of life. And we feel like when you're pursuing a passion, that really is benefiting your life in that way. So that's what we're doing next. Ann Yeah. I think that's wonderful. Before I retired, I worked a lot with veterans and I had quite a few veterans with Parkinson's symptoms. And one of the things that they felt that they could continue to do, even though they had their music and they just connected with that kind of stuff. And they continued, one of them was a drummer and he found ways to keep up his response times and stuff like that. And I think if he hadn't been a drummer, maybe he would have slid into a symptomology even more. So there's definitely that physical component that keeps the mind active and engaged so you don't have that freeze time and that delay of response. And I think definitely there's this, I don't know, maybe I know how the mind works. We really don't know a lot about how the mind works, But I think there's this component of desire and wanting to do something, in that your creative brain that can really, can really help delay the on those symptoms. So you guys are on the right track with all of that for sure. And the only other, the only thing that I, there was when I lived in Westchester County, New York, there was the Westchester Music Conservatory. They did a healing music program for PTSD. It could have been PTSD from war trauma or from other types of stuff, any type of abuse or whatever. And that was the only program that I knew of like in New York state. I mean, and it was really popular. And we would send some of our veterans and stuff to them they did guitar and violin and keyboards for people. Yeah. But they didn't have adaptive equipment. They would be teaching people on regular stuff. So yeah, this is definitely something that's much, much needed. Have you ever approached the VA at all or the Veterans Administration or any types of veteran treatment centers with what you want to do that might be? Renee I know that there, I'm in a couple of veterans groups that we follow on social media and such like that. The local VA has a few guitar groups where they get together and they jam and stuff like that. We want to do that. We just need to get our feet on the ground and going. And that is one of the places that we want to get involved in in our overall marketing strategy. But we have not yet fully. that I know there's some great opportunities to work with veterans and we will do that. We just need to, we need time is what we need. So we're just working on that right now. Tristan Yeah, 'cause we went out officially full time about two weeks ago. (laughing) Now that we got the full time status, we're gonna be making a lot more moves a lot quicker. - Yeah. Tristan, what are you doing beforehand? Meghan Like full time work before working? Tristan Yeah, I used to be a manager for a family entertainment establishment. Meghan Wow. Tristan So it was about 50 hours a week on top of the Renee Oh my God. Tristan 100 hours that we were thinking about in vision. - Wow. Renee Yeah, he would get home at 2.30 in the morning and then I'd call at eight and he didn't get to sleep till sometimes four. And like, okay, you ready? And you know, and so, yeah, it was a lot for him. And finally we were just like, we can't do this. we have to follow our passion. And we're just gonna take the risk and see where it leads us and this is what we're gonna do. So it's what we're doing. Ann So what do you guys do when you're not doing this? Jason Nothing. (laughing) Tristan I was gonna say, we still try to maintain just the important values of life on top of it just to make sure that we ourselves are healthy individuals. So that way, just 'cause you can't, I feel like you can't do anything for anyone else unless you yourself are taken care of. So part of our work day is also making sure we get our regular workout routines in routine, Jason making sure we're serving our community in some way Tristan and then keeping our faith with us, with everything that we do, because without that, it really doesn't matter. - Yeah. So that's kind of when we're not doing that, we just focus on the parts of life that actually do matter. you know, that along with family time and all that fun jazz. Renee Tristan and I get a lot of family time. (both laughing) Ann I love that. - Yeah. So what else do you think that Friends in Art can do to help you out? I mean, we have, I mean, we'd love to do what we can for you, like just, you know, helping you promote stuff. I would really like to see us to, you know, be able to, I don't know how we could help you, but maybe we can work, we can do some brainstorming and. Meghan I can think of like a hundred ways that I could. Yeah. So, okay, you guys have time or you're looking for more folks or anything like that, especially I got the privilege to work at Perkins School for the Blind for like eight months in Boston, and they have a big music therapy department. And so if you are looking for more folks that are fully blind or low vision, they have a lot of students that would benefit from you guys. So I'm happy to connect you with any of my people. But yeah, I agree with Annie if there's any way that friends in art can help you, let us know. Tristan Yeah, no, we would love that. For us, it's the more people we can connect with the better because the work is there. We just need to be where the work is at and with individuals that need our services. So the more people that we can connect with and the more that we can really do our art for other people, that's what really benefits us the most. So we always can find the time to meet with you, meet with other people because unless we do, we're not going to be able to help the people we're trying to help. Ann Yeah. I don't know if you know about the major conventions that come up for the ACB and also the National Federation of the Blind. They're in July. We've already gone past our programming stages for them, but for next year, that's a place you probably want to be. You probably want to be, see if you could be a vendor in the exhibit hall. They can do, God times, they do an in-person one and then they do a virtual recording, like a short piece as well. But that's something that you should look into. and then there's also the American Foundation of the Blind, they have a convention and a conference. So there's all kinds of resources there for you to prep for the conference season. That might be a good idea for you to get the word out for your marketing and stuff. Renee That would be wonderful. We are set up and ready to do any of that, and we would love to be involved in it. Ann Cool, okay, yeah, I mean, I know as, I'm a writer and sometimes the marketing is the hardest part of all of this and it's a full-time job in itself, so I hear you. - Yeah. - Sometimes you wanna say, "I want somebody else to do this." Tristan That's why I'm glad there's two of us. Ann Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you guys share the stress, right? And share the load and share the successes and yeah, wonderful stuff. I wanted to ask you if you, could you tell us your website and your other social media stuff for people who are listening and wanna look you up? Tristan Definitely, yeah. So for our social medias, for our Facebook, it's just capital N, capital V for InVision Guitars, LLC. as far as our Instagram, it's all lowercase, Envision_Guitars. And then we are still working on getting our square website up and going. We've done some tinkering around with it, but we should be publishing it here soon. And then we also have our YouTube, which is EnvisionGuitars LLC, in which we just kind of post the different build processes. And it's a, yep, just @envisionguitars. Ann Okay, cool. Meghan All right, Megan, you have any other questions? No, I mean, I think a lot of the questions that I asked, we kind of both thought about them, which is awesome. No further questions on my end. I just am so impressed by you guys. I found, I just found your Instagram gave you. Oh, yay. Yeah. Renee That's awesome. Well, thank you guys for having us on and we really appreciate it. And if, you know, if anything comes up, we would love to be a part of anything that, you know relates to this and and we appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Ann Thank you all for coming and good luck to you all. Thank you. Renee Wonderful stuff. Best of luck. All right. So much Megan. Take care guys. All right. Thank you. Jason Art Parlor is brought to you by Friends in Art and ACB Media. It airs several times a week on ACB Media One. To listen and for a full schedule, go to acbmedia.org/one (http://acbmedia.org/one). Art Parlor is also available as a podcast. Just search for Art Parlor in your favorite podcast app. We'd love to hear from you. You can email us at artparlor@friendsinart.org and please feel free to check out our website www.friendsinart.org (http://www.friendsinart.org). Thank you so much for listening and for your support. We'll be back next month.

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

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Podcast Authority Score: 11 / 100

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Quality

10

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0

YouTube

0

Engagement

27