Richard Burn
Richard is currently a lecturer at the University of Wolverhampton and a Midlands3Cities-funded student here at BCU.
Richard proposes the creation of a new musical interface that will combine haptic and visual forms of feedback to create a more inclusive experience for deaf people.
Alongside vibrations, visual indictors will appear on a digital display that collectively form a ‘sonic fingerprint’ when an instrument is played, highlighting different components that make up the sound.
"Traditional waveform representations are unable to truly describe what music actually sounds like," Richard says. "There are much more subtle characteristics of sound that may be better represented visually, for example, by using simple shapes and symbols to describe harmonic content.
"My proposed system will hopefully give deaf players of electronic instruments the same sort of experience as that enjoyed by deaf players of acoustic instruments."
Having spent 35 years in the Royal Air Force, Richard decided to pursue his long-standing interest in music technology.
While studying for an MSc, he did some work on visual feedback – using light and colour to enhance musical performance.
He decided to study this in more depth for his PhD, but with a particular focus on the needs of deaf musicians.