ABSTRACT
This chapter examines adaptive music: that is, the means by which physically disabled people with hand/arm impairments modify conventional performance practice and conventional musical equipment in order to play musical instruments. One possible collaboration would blend do it yourself (DIY) ingenuity, the work of institutions like the Centre, and the power of medical informatics to create a free and open, well-indexed database of adaptive musical resources. While some disabled musicians whose accommodations were designed outside health institutions utilise costly devices, such as Rick Allen's drums and David Nabb's saxophone, these are exceptions, used by accomplished professionals who acquired their disabilities after establishing careers. Shakespeare and Watson report that medical treatment that enhances mobility has been opposed in strong social model scholarship, a position that would doubtless mystify many, including disabled people, outside disability studies. Fundamental to disability studies are the binary perspectives termed the medical and social models of disability.
