Sonic Agency: A Group Autoethnography of Technology-mediated Performance Practice by Deaf and Hard of Hearing Musicians
Doga Cavdir, Dillon Simone, Myles de Bastion, Shawn Trail, Nate Hergert · 2025 · ASSETS 2025: 27th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility · doi:10.1145/3663547.3746396
Summary
This paper presents a 15-month group autoethnography conducted by a mixed-hearing team of five researchers and musicians affiliated with CymaSpace, a Deaf-owned music and culture institution in Portland, Oregon. The study examines how d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing musicians actively participate in technology-mediated music performance, moving beyond the dominant research focus on DHH people as passive music consumers. The team—comprising Deaf, Hard of Hearing, Deaf/Blind, and hearing members with diverse musical backgrounds—documented their experiences through retrospective accounts, fieldnotes, and performance artifacts collected from January 2024 to March 2025. Their practice integrated three sensory modalities: audio-reactive visual displays (LED systems embedded in instruments and wearable 3D-printed masks that map frequency and amplitude to light and color), audio-haptic integration (vibrotactile Woojer vests and customized haptic mixing setups that let musicians feel individual instrument signals on their bodies), and gestural interfaces (a glove-based controller called GeLu that provides haptic fingertip feedback and audio-reactive light, designed to complement rather than interfere with sign language). The ensemble performed in studio sessions and on a four-day tour across three educational institutions, engaging mixed-hearing audiences through workshops and concerts.
Key findings
The study identifies three areas where sonic agency is practiced: DHH musicians as technology developers who design custom assistive music technologies driven by their lived experience; hacking and re-building recording studio environments as resilience, repurposing commercially available technologies for Deaf-specific needs; and performance as a tool for visibility, advocacy, and community building beyond purely auditory experience. Three key challenges emerged: misalignment of musical expectations between hearing and Deaf co-performers in mixed-ability spaces, unfamiliarity with abstract musical concepts like tempo and time signatures among Deaf musicians who lacked early music education, and technological limitations of existing assistive technologies not designed by or for DHH musicians. In response, the team developed three essential strategies: prioritizing Deaf-composed music to center Deaf creative agency rather than treating Deaf musicians as additions to hearing ensembles; returning to the body through somatic approaches like heartbeat-based rhythms that can be physically internalized; and using graphic scores as accessible documentation and notation that communicates musical concepts visually. The researchers define sonic agency as the right and ability to shape sound regardless of whether one can hear it, encompassing access to tools, spaces, communication, and feedback systems.
Relevance
This paper is significant for accessibility practitioners because it reframes musical accessibility from passive consumption to active creation and performance. The concept of sonic agency—the right to influence and interact with sound meaningfully through visual, tactile, and expressive means—extends beyond music to any domain where DHH individuals are excluded from creative or productive roles. The practical design implications are directly actionable: multimodal assistance in recording studios, personalizable haptic stations for performers, and multichannel communication systems that don't rely solely on auditory cues. The study's advocacy for "designing by DHH communities for DHH communities" reinforces the shift from designing for people to designing by people in accessibility research. For organizations building assistive technologies, this work demonstrates that bespoke, lived-experience-driven design often outperforms generic commercial solutions.
Tags: deaf and hard of hearing · musical accessibility · autoethnography · haptic feedback · assistive music technology · sensory substitution · creative practice · deaf culture