Exploring Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) and inclusive music practices for blind music producers. An interdisciplinary study of digital music techn

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This study seeks to investigate the accessibility of Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) to blind music producers. It is an ethnographic study designed to explore how blind producers navigate around the digital platform of music compositions and audio recordings. The DAWs are digital platforms on which musical instruments and audio manipulations can be performed digitally. However, these platforms are predominantly visual/graphic based which present some barriers to blind producers from having independent access. The study will therefore generate its data by interviewing blind music producers from different backgrounds. Also, the study will adopt participants' observations as a tool through which the practical experiences of participants can be thoroughly observed and documented. Phenomenology is the preferred approach of this study. Phenomenology as a study of experience and perception provides us with the opportunity to study different phenomena and human experiences in a unique and systematic model. This approach is particularly important for these studies as disabled people experience disability in diverse ways. Therefore, the study takes interest in exploring how blind music producers make use of specific DAWs and their perception on accessibility. The aim of the study is to scholarly contribute new knowledge to the study of music production and accessibility of the DAWs for blind music producers. This is essential because the chosen subject is broadly understudied which creates a substantial gap in the debate on inclusivity in music scholarship. Similarly, the study will explore social angle of accessibility, which includes economic/cultural background, as well as the role of information in the process of removing barriers. Other than the aims stated above, the study also plans to provide practicable solutions to the problem of accessibility. Although, the primary objective is not to develop a completely accessible DAW but the study ought to discover possible ways of modifying existing DAWs to be compatible with computer screen readers for the blind people.