RUNNING HEAD: LETS ROCK, TOGETHER

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Lets Rock, Together: The Smooth Criminals, Disability, and Inclusion

Jesse Rathgeber
ABSTRACT
This case study explores the means and meanings of inclusion for disabled persons in
popular music learning settings. Drawing on ethnographic techniques, I embedded myself within
the Smooth Criminals: a music therapy-based rock band comprised of five disabled young adult
members diagnosed with developmental disabilities and four adult assistants (two music
therapists, one intern, and one volunteer). Taking on the role of participant-observer for a period
of 15 months, I generated data through video recordings of weekly practices and two concerts,
field notes, researcher memos, and interviews with participants. Three major themes emerged:
(1) an ethic of accommodation; (2) the band as a space for identity play and voluntary selfdisclosure; and (3) the band as a social hub and place for communal connection through music.
Findings suggest a need to interrogate how aesthetics that inform popular music pedagogy and
practices might operate as barriers to inclusion for disabled persons. I conclude by discussing
how music facilitators might foster inclusion via an ethic of accommodation and a valuing of an
aesthetic of disability.

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INTRODUCTION
Slee (2007) suggests that, inclusive schooling is a precondition of democratic education
. . . [yet] much of what is offered as inclusive education [may be] less than democratic, less than
inclusive (p. 3). Replacing schooling for musicking and adding music to education in this
quote might suggest the state of inclusion in contemporary music education. From this starting
point, we must consider what inclusive musicking might look like and what values it might
embody within popular music learning practices. In this paper, I discuss musicking practices of
Smooth Criminals, a music therapy rock band comprised of five disabled1 young adults
diagnosed with developmental disorders and four adult assistants. What might we learn about
disability and inclusion from the practices of this group?
BRIEF REVIEW OF LITERATURE
First, I turn to present research literature related to disability and music education to uncover
what both disability and inclusion mean throughout the discourse. Studies related to disability
and music education or music therapy commonly focus on special needs or diagnostic labelspecific categories with the discourses falling into one of three categories: (1) inclusive and
adaptive approaches; (2) perceptions and experiences of teachers and peers of students with
disabilities; and (3) music making and learning of persons with disabilities.
Inclusive and adaptive pedagogical practices appears as the largest body within the
reviewed literature and can be found in a variety of sources: practitioner journals (e.g. Abramo,
2012; Adamek, 2001; Hoem, 1972; McCord & Fitzgerald, 2006; Stambaugh, 1996), pedagogical

1
Except for in the review of literature, I do not use the more common people-first language of
persons with disabilities, not out of insensitivity or ignorance. Instead, I use the more common
disability studies formation of disabled person, which recognizes the way in which disability
affects a person and is not something that people possess. It suggests that they carry with them
some type of ontologically real diagnosis throughout which one carrier with them throughout
life. For an additional discussion of this topic, see Titchkosky (2001).

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texts (e.g. Adamek & Darrow, 2010; Atterbury, 1990; Hammel & Hourigan, 2011; 2013;
Jellison, 2014; Sobol, 2008) and research publications (e.g Jellison, Brooks, & Huck, 1984;
Jellison & Gainer, 1995; Kivijrvi, 2012; Lapka, 2005; McCord, 2004). Most authors articulate
best practices, mainstreaming techniques, adaptation and accommodations, and inclusive
strategies for helping students with disabilities engage in music making and learning. This
literature also displays how disability discourse has changed over the years, specifically
illustrating how disabled persons are referred: from educable mentally retarded (Hoem, 1972),
to handicapped, to special learners (Stambaugh, 1996), to students or children with
disabilities (Abramo, 2012; McCord, 2004). Prominent in these discussions are the use of
assistive technology devices, which are items, used to increase, maintain, or improve the
functioning capabilities of individuals (Accardo & Whitman 2011, p. 36), features prominent.
Overall, the publications suggest ways to help students with disabilities access music learning
and making experiences with an explicit focus on how music facilitators2 might help these
students fit within existing music practices and settings.
Perceptions and experiences of teachers and peers working with disabled students are another
nexus of research on disability and music education. Studies of this type come primarily in the
form of research publications (e.g Darrow, 1999; Gilbert & Asmus, 1981; Hourigan, 2009;
Wilson & McCrary, 1996; Scott, Jellison, Chappell, & Standridge, 2007; VanWeelden &
Whipple, 2005; 2007). Studies related to teachers perceptions suggest that they feel
underprepared to work with students with disabilities but become comfortable with as they gain
experience with such students. Darrow (1999) notes a that music educators often forward the

2
I use the word facilitators as a means to indicate any that lead and or help structure music
learning and/or music engagement, this includes music educators, music therapists, and many
other types of music learning or engagement-related leaders.

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importance of inclusion for both disabled and nondisabled students in music learning spaces, but
often struggle with deciding how inclusion can be achieved and to what extent they are ready or
willing to support inclusion. Studies focusing on peer perceptions (e.g. Darrow & Johnson, 1994;
Cassidy, 1991) discuss the ways in which labels and visible characteristics of disabled students
effect how their peers accept them. Regarding the perceptions of teacher and peers, we hear only
about how disabled students are received and how others act to include them, with limited
acknowledgement of to what extent those with disabilities feel included in music learning spaces.
Case studies of disabled persons musicking address the gap in research on disabled persons
feelings of inclusion. Much of these studies focus on how facilitators might support disabled
persons musicking in established musicking settings and/or in music therapy spaces (e.g Ellis,
1997; Jellison & Gainer, 1995; McCord, 2009; Whipple, 2004). Some studies (e.g Abramo &
Pierce, 2013; Bell, 2008; 2014 DeVito, 2006; Hullick, 2013) explore how disabled persons
engage with and learn music with a focus on their interests, their abilities, and their processes. It
is specifically from this perspective that the current study aligns, generally seeking to uncover
means of musicking by disabled persons to see what it might suggest as for means of inclusion as
well as ways to expand current music practices.
THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
I draw upon disabilities studies literature to inform the theoretical framework of this
study and the interpretation of the findings discussed later in this paper. Disabilities studies is a
multifaceted and multidisciplinary field which seeks to question how disability has been
constructed through discourse and tacit societal power (Linton, 2005). The field of disability
studies seeks to inspect and interrogate the representational and institutional structures that
constitute [disability] to discover what kinds of analyses and interventions can reconstruct

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society towards being a better fit for disabled persons (Linton, 2005, p. 518) and others deemed
to be outside what is considered normal.
The concept that has come to be known as the social model of disability is a central
theoretical lens used in disabilities studies is The social model provides a perspective to see
disability as:
a social problem concerned with the effect of hostile physical and social environments upon
impaired individuals, or even a societal one concerned with the way that society treated this
particular minority group. (Oliver, 1983, p. 2)
The social model contrasts what disability studies authors see as societys dominant view of
disability, often referred to as the medical or individual model, which views disability as a
personal issue that resides within a disabled person and which must be treated and/or fixed as to
make them fit within a broader social setting. The social model allows us to consider disability as
a social construction that forms and is formed by oppressive material and ideological barriers to
full participation in social life. My discussion in this paper focuses on the notion of barriers to
participation and how the specific case of the Smooth Criminals demonstrates not only the
existence of barriers to participation within popular music learning practices, but also ways in
which participants in popular music learning spaces might negotiate and even work to remove
such barriers, fostering more inclusive practices and social spaces for musicking.
CONTEXT OF THE STUDY
This paper is informed by data generated over a 15-month period of an ongoing case study of
the rock band the Smooth Criminals. The Smooth Criminals is comprised of five young adult
members each who have been diagnosed with developmental disorders (primarily Down
syndrome or Autism Spectrum Disorders) and four assisting adults (two music therapists, one

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intern, and one volunteer), Kelly, Karen, Sam, and myself. The young adult members include:
Tim, a twenty-something with a love for the Beatles and all things My Little Pony; Alana, an
awarded athlete in her twenties that loves Disneys Frozen and is a professed Belieber; Adam,
a senior in high school and the bands resident jokester; John, a stoic and skilled multiinstrumentalist who loves to chat about Marvels Avengers and Star Wars; and Dylan, an
eighteen-year-old with dance moves to spare who loves to get down to Michael Jackson, Bruno
Mars, and, on occasion, Ozzy Osborne.
The band meets weekly for an hour to socialize and practice at a local music therapy clinic in
a suburb of a large, Southwestern city in the United States. The Smooth Criminals are one of six
music therapy rock bands hosted by this clinic. The clinic provides traditional, one-on-one music
therapy in which music is systematically used by trained and board certified music therapists to
achieve individual behavioral or physical therapeutic goals, as well as a rock band group
program informed by community music therapy practices. Community music therapy is an
approach to music therapy which, according to Ruud (2004), focuses on exploring ways to build
solidarity toward social change, leading to opening up the community for difference by fostering
a greater sense of mutual caring (p. 6). Community music therapy programs, like the one in
which the Smooth Criminals operate,
are characterized by collaborative and context-sensitive music-making [focusing] upon
giving voice to the relatively disadvantages in any context. The participants interest in
and love for music is essential, but the shared music-making also relates to concerns for
health, human development, and equity . . . [focusing] on the relationships between
individuals experiences and the possible creation of musical community. (Stige, Andsell,
Elefant, & Pavlicevi, 2010, p. 5)

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This ethic frames the practice of the Smooth Criminals that, through exploring popular music
instruments and styles, public performances, and individual band members and their family
members discussions about the band with community members foster inclusive communities.
This occurs not by treating individual pathologies, but by means of developing musical abilities
and challenging community assumptions about what disabled persons can and cannot do. Prior to
discussing the findings and theoretical implications of the work of the Smooth Criminals, I will
briefly discuss the design and methods of this qualitative study.
DESIGN AND METHODS
This 15 month long study took the form of a case study in which I took on the role of a
participant observer as a volunteer. I relied on ethnographic/naturalistic mean of data
generations, including: video recordings and field notes of over 45 weekly practice sessions,
semi-structured and informal interviews with participants and associated adults/family members,
audio and video recordings of three concerts, researcher memos, and selective transcription of
observations, concerts, and interviews. Questions guiding the inquiry included: (1) What are the
practices of the band? What barriers to participation do they experience and how are these
barriers negotiated? and (2) What does the experience in the band mean to its participants?
Data analysis included descriptive and axial coding approaches (Saldaa, 2012) leading
to the uncovering of three emergent themes: (1) an ethic of accommodation; (2) the band as a
space for identity play and voluntary self-disclosure; and (3) the band as a social hub and place
for communal connection through music.
Findings
Theme 1: An Ethic of Accommodation

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From slides to stickers and from open tuning to digital technology, the Smooth Criminals
rely on an atmosphere, an ethic, of accommodation. Much like in all learning settings, no single
approach to learning and/or playing works for all the members. One approach might work for
one member on one song or for one day, but not work again. All band members are constantly
working together to try out accommodative approaches and develop new ones In this section, I
will first discuss some of the common accommodations used by the band. I will then discuss how
the way that accommodation plays out in the practice of the Smooth Criminals can be likened to
what Galloway, Nudd, and Sandahl (2007) refer to as an ethic of accommodation.
Common Accommodations
The practices of the band regularly draw on the use of assistive technology devices to
scaffold music learning and performing. Examples include the use of digital technology to
mediate musical performance, chording devices, color codes, and alternative uses for existing
musical equipment [show pictures]. Some examples include the use of a guitar slide as a fretting
device along with an open tuning to help members play open chords on a guitar. On occasion,
the group uses newly created devices like the piano chording device seen in this picture [show
picture]. Sometimes digital technologies like iPads and MIDI trigger pads [show picture of
Dylan playing iPad and Tim using the trigger pad] replace more standard rock band instruments
when these instruments present too high of barriers for band members easily negotiate. In this
video, Tim uses a trigger pad connected to Ableton Live to play prerecorded instrumental clips
[show video].
The also band uses a color-coded visual/notational system in their practice [show
picture]. Band members locate chords, pitches, and other changes by finding colored stickers
which are placed on frets, strings, keys, and drum heads according to the colors noted on pieces

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of paper and/or chanted by assistants. This is a common accommodative tool because, as Tervo
(2001) suggests, using color words and related visuals rather than more complex jargon can add
additional layers of support to allow for greater success In the following vignette, Dylan, Alana,
and Kelly make use of the color-code system, though an unexpected barrier emerges.
Purple . . . purple, Kelly nearly chants loudly. After a bit of mental processing time,
Dylan with his white strat laying in his lap and Alana at the keyboard look down to
their instruments, find purple, and hit the B just in time to hear Kelly shout, red . . .
red. The cycle of processing and color finding begins again. Kelly does her best to shout
the colors early enoughoften two beats ahead of changesso that Alana and Dylan
might keep in time with the changes.
Though the adult assistants had expected that changing from one color sticker to another would
take additional processing time, none of us had fully considered the high degree of perception
and decoding time that it might take for Dylan and Alana to hear an aural cue, decode the word,
translate it into a mental representation of the actual color, find the color on their instrument, and
move their hands to physically depress a fret or key. After numerous experiences like this, we
sought for another way to communicate changes that might expedite the process. The following
vignette demonstrates the solution that I came up with:
I arrive with a homemade pedal board made of foam, wires, washers, and a Makey
Makey. As the band sets up for Billie Jean, I plug in the board to my computer and
open a simple coded visual display. Alana and Dylan stop what they are doing and come
over. Cool! Dylan laughs. Grab your instruments, Ill show you how this works, I
respond. When they are all situated, I tap one of the washers and the screen turns purple.
I begin to play the transposed verse chord progression (Bm, Cm, Db, Cm). I tap another

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washer on the pedal board and the screen turns red, I play Cm, and so on. Without a
word, Dylan and Alana start playing along.
This pedal board and visual display helped a great deal as Alana and Dylan made the changes
quicker, freeing up their listening to attend to the overall sound of the band. Though this
accommodation did improve the musical performance, from the perspective of adult assistants
and our aesthetic expectations of playing in time, it wasnt a panacea. In fact, the young adult
members grew tired of it:
We have been using the pedal board for a few months and it seems to work. The young
adults are playing a little more in time; they seem to be able to listen to the group since
they dont have to focus on listening for the next color. However, after a while, one by
one, they stop wanting to use it, instead looking at the adult assistants faces for chord
and pitch changes. At first, the adult assistants try to redirect their attention to the
screen, but its almost futile as they seem to insist on a more direct connection. We go
back to chanting colors and the music gets a little sloppier, but there are more smiles,
more movement in the young adults playing, more eye contact, and a much more
enjoyable feel as we play.
Our best attempts to accommodate the young adults needs for longer processing time related to
using the color code led me to create a foot pedal which did help in accommodating Dylan and
Alanas processing time needs and in making the music sound better to the adult assistants.
However, the young adults persistence in wanting more directly personal experience suggests
that our assumptions about the sound being more important that the young adult members
needs for playing with another person. Our abandoning of this helpful tool, even though it did
result in a more aesthetically pleasing sound to us, demonstrates not only our attention to the

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desires of the band members for social connection, allowing them to demonstrate their own selfdetermination, but also illustrates an unstated ethic of accommodation (Galloweay, Nudd, &
Sandahl, 2007).
Ethic of Accommodation
In many ways, the practices of the Smooth Criminals rely upon an unstated ethic of
accommodation which Galloway, Nudd, and Sandahl suggest is a
means of including everyone wanting to participate, often necessitating that the majority
make difficult changes in its practices and environment . . . [including the] politics of
listening as well as politics of speaking . . . [as well as] making room for difference,
letting go of preconceived notions of perfectibility, and negotiating complex sets of
needs. (p. 229)
Our discarding of the pedal board might easily display such an ethic of accommodation at play
in that we adult assistants, possessing not only some power as leaders in the musical experience
but also drawing from our own aesthetic values, realized that the social needs of the young adults
to play with and be with each other were clearly more important to them than aesthetic factors.
Valuing the expressed desires of band members to the perceived detriment of the musical
product perhaps demonstrates making room for difference, [a] letting go of preconceived
notions of perfectibility (Galloway, Nudd, & Sandahl, 2007, p. 229). The following vignette
further illustrates the ethic of accommodation at play in band practices:
What beat do you think will go well with this song, Tim? questions Karen. Tim tightly
grabs some drum sticks and using a punch-like motion, begins to play a patter of hitting
the high tom, the snare drum, and pushing the kick pedal for the bass drum. This pattern
phases in and out of being in time with the recording of Frosty the Snowman. Karen

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grabs sticks and plays a simple pattern of eighth notes on the high-hat cymbal. For the
first run through, Karen attempts to keep time like a metronome, trying to help Tim
connect with the steady beat. During the next try, Tim stops playing the tom and plays a
bass-snare pattern with greater success, though his playing phases in and out of time.
Karen begins to eases her metronomic playing and starts to follow Tim. We seem to be in
a groove. Its a little messy, but Adam and John, who are singing, seem to be moving and
singing with a bit more ease. As we near the next refrain, Dylan on guitar yells, Yeah,
with an excited smile. Alana plays the keyboard with a syncopated and polyrhythmic
pattern.
Karen did not suggest a beat pattern for the song but, instead, consulted with Tim about what he
thought would best fit the song. Karen did not stop and correct Tim when he chose to change the
pattern. In both of these ways, Karen enacted an ethic of accommodation by overriding her own
aesthetic-informed expectation of what the drum pattern should sound like. Though she validated
his thoughts, she did attempt to help him align to her sense of what it meant to be in time and
to keep a steady beat. She was trying to help him fulfill the beat keeping role that a drummer
often takes on in a rock band. She assumed that if he kept in time with her internal sense of a
steady beat that the entire band might sound better. However, when she intentionally sets aside
this assumption of the need for a tight steady beat and follows Tim, the band hits a groove and
the members become more expressive and connected. By making room for difference, letting
go of preconceived notions of perfectibility, and [collectively] negotiating complex sets of needs
(Galloway, Nudd, & Sandahl, 2007, p. 229), something different emerged.
Theme 2: Band as a Space for Identity Play and Voluntary Self-Disclosure

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John joins us gathered in our customary opening social circle while Adam shares a joke
with Dylan who is showing off some new dance moves in the center of the group:
Knock, knock, whose there, Tacoman! Alana chats with Sam about her latest
athletic award and how excited she is about going home to groom her puppy, Odie. Tim
turns and talks to Karen and I about an upcoming business merger between Delta and
American Airlines, smiling. Really, what name will they have, Karen asks. Delta!
Tim responds as he begins to laugh. Are you messing with us, I ask as Tim lights up. A
yes is barely audible in between his giggling. As he gains his composure, he says, Im
going to study law at the college soon, business law. John tugs on Karens shirt and
bursts into telling her all about the latest Avengers movie.
If one were a fly on the wall for very common moments like the one described in the
vignette above, what would they notice? Some might see a group of young adults chatting with
friends and older adults, just a group hanging out. Some might notice that three of the five young
adults display flat facial features, thick folds under their eyes, and other facial characteristics
common of Down syndrome (Accardo & Whitman, 2011). They might notice John rocking
subtly and staring out into the distance as he talks in monotone to Karen. They might see Alanas
pink hearing aides. Some might even notice Tims sing-song high voice blending with Adams
mumbled speech. Such a fly-on-the-wall observer might then assume that the Smooth Criminals
is comprised of disabled persons due to observable cue, or, as Goffman (1963) refers to them,
[s]igma symbols [which] have the character of being continuously available to [others]
perception (p. 101). Some might be able to discern that a few of the members are diagnosed as
having Down syndrome and a few have diagnoses concurrent with autism spectrum disorders.
The little perceptual tells, the stigma symbolslike Johns in his own world look and

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monotone explanation of minute details of all things Avengersallows outside observers to

bestow, to impose, the identity of being disabled upon these young adults. These stigma
symbols also inform assumptions that these observers will have about the young adults abilities,
their personal characteristics, and their very position as beings in the world. However,
assumptions do not adequately coincide with who the young adults are and how they want to be
known.
The young adult members of the Smooth Criminals challenge and play with socially
constructed and applied identities during band sessions. The sessions provide a space to try on
and try out what Ibarra (1999) refers to as provisional selves. The young adults have
opportunities to define themselves via social expression of their selves from wholesale to
selective role explorations. In this video, you may notice that Dylan emulates his hero, Bruno
Mars, in his dance and gestures, taking on a more wholesale try on of a provisional self [show
video clip]. Beyond emulating heroes, many band members try out or try on different role
identities, often informed by the instruments with which they engage. When Adam played the
guitar, he tried out guitar hero provisional selves as he played in gesture and in attitude.
Central to community music therapy is the use of musical engagement to challenge
assumptions of ability, identity, and personhood that are tacitly woven into the ideological fabric
of the community in which the band operates (Stige, Ansdell, Elefant, & Pavlicevi, 2010, p. 5).
For the Smooth Criminals, this occurs by affording the young adults chances to develop their
musical abilities and collect the valuable cultural capital of being in a performing rock band
both of which would certainly challenge some community members expectations for what a
disabled person can do musicallybut also gives space for them to share who they are and who
they want to be. Such voluntary self-disclosure is empowering for the young adult members. The

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opening moments of practice, as depicted in the previous vignette, are indicative of the
foundational dedication to giving space and fostering empowermentsocial and personal
through music.
Theme 3: The Band as a Social Hub and Communal Place
Moments before band sessions begin are filled with excitement and casual conversations
between members, family members, and caregivers as they gather in the hallway outside
of the rock band room. Alana and her grandmother usually arrive first, chatting about
work being done on the new family home. As Dylan and Adam arrive with the caregiver
who drives them every week, the two young men crack out their pre-band snacks after
greeting Alana. Tim and John arrive around the same time with their mothers. Johns
mother settles down next to Alanas grandmother, pulling out her most recent knitting
project in hopes to get some help with a stitch she has been having trouble with. family
stories, and a feeling of oneness, an atmosphere that seems to follow the band members
into their practice session and to concerts out in the community.
The nature of the band as the center of a growing social hub should not be surprising
given that fostering social inclusion and community through music is a therapeutic thrust of the
rock band program in which the Smooth Criminals operates. The shared experience of engaging
in musically struggling together, in overcoming together, and in celebrating together in and
through music provides an opening in which the band members bond. The band as a space
allows for members to work with one another rather than side-by-side (Buber, 1947) in
community through music, rather than in collective based on similar interests or identities. In
classrooms and other social situations, these young adults experience collective existence as they
work, learn, and play next to and near peers. These collectives are formed via institutional

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groupings based on assumed needs of constituent members or even on disability labels. Dylan
and Adam attend a high school where they experience not a binding but a bundling together
(Buber, 1947, p. 37) with their peers in courses where they learn in both special education and in
mainstreamed classes. Other members have experienced segregated educational experiences,
where they are bundled together in collectives of persons with assumingly similar needs.
Indeed, community may occur in such collective settings. Yet, in interviews, none of the
young adults described their experiences in these types of collectives as being communal in the
same manner that they do when describing the band. In the band, the members describe a sense
of belonging, as Dylan demonstrated in saying, Oh, boy, our band! Lets jam! or as John
illustrates when discussing his favorite things about the band: playing drums, with you and us,
together. There is a sincere sense of togetherness within the band with the pronoun we
regularly applied when referring to the band. This stands in relief to their use of the words me,
mine, them, and their when discussing most of their outside of band experiences, as
apparent in the video recorded data.
This sense of community extends beyond the band members and outwards to encompass
their family members and caregivers. Johns mother and Alanas grandmother regularly share
family stories and help each other with knitting projects while the band practices. They chat
with Dylans caregiver about his post-graduation plans. Outside of the practice sessions, Adam
and Dylans families regularly meet for cookouts and entertainment events. At concerts, the band
members families sit next to each other, cheering for the band like one large family, and even
regularly go out to eat afterwards, together. We really are like a great big family, you know,
Alanas grandmother noted, continuing, I think I look forward to practice and concerts as much
as Alana does because I get to catch up with these wonderful people.

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Perhaps, the act of musicking together, with a dedication to giving space to

communication and socializing, provides an intentional object from which the band members
unite in struggle, a struggle not against their perceived diagnostic differences, but, rather, a
struggle to be with one another in the music they create; a struggle to be recognized as a band, a
community, rather than individuals engaged in therapy. It is in a community struggling for its
own reality as a community, as Buber (1947, p. 36) notes, in which true togetherness, a true
sense of being with others, occurs. The drive to be in communion with one another in and out of
music appears to drive the band members and their families to come to practices perhaps as
much or even more than the want to become better rock musicians.
DISCUSSION: INCLUSION
The practices of the Smooth Criminals demonstrate many ways to make popular music
learning spaces more inclusive. The use of assistive technology devices is the most accessible
and seemingly directs strategies to use to foster inclusion. However, such material adaptations to
practice might do more to attempt to fit disabled persons into socially excepted musical practices
rather than adapt settings sand practices to be more fitting for different ways of being. Physical
barriers to social participation are manifestations of unspoken and naturalized assumptions of
what it means to correctly be within music making settings. These assumption also inform
interpersonal and intrapersonal barriers to participation, barriers that are not easily negotiated
solely through material accommodations but that require a questioning of the very nature of
aesthetics, acts, and practices, like those which ground music education, popular or otherwise.
Perhaps these assumptions are the greatest barriers that exist to fostering truly inclusive music
making spaces. In this section, I draw on the social model of disability as a critical lens by which
to view inclusion of disabled persons from the perceptive of aesthetic and pedagogical

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assumptions of popular music education, drawing on the Galloway, Nudd, and Sandahls (2007)
ethic of accommodation and Higgins (2012) unconditional hospitality as tools to consider
how we might open up musical practices to become more inclusive to difference.
Lets listen again to the band and consider the quality of their playing in conjunction to
our own natural aesthetic expectations of how a rock band should sound [play clip of concert].
How might you describe the sound of the Smooth Criminals? Their music might sound sloppy;
at times it sounds a bit sparse while other times it is cacophonous; the singing goes from being
slurred, to in tune, to shouting. Does this sound fit within our aesthetic expectations of how a
rock band should sound? I would venture that the answer is no, and that our content and
pedagogic know-how drives us to want to help them get in tune, in balance, and in time. But,
what if we took our established aesthetic value and set it aside? What if we listened with new
ears to potentially discover new aesthetic perspectives that may be hidden within what appears as
a near aural chaos?
Siebers (2010) suggests that socially accepted aesthetics form around the notions of
perfection. Disability is regularly seen as a representation of imperfection. Yet, Seibers wishes to
positions disability as a valid and powerful aesthetic lens, one which might open the space for
new and powerful arts works and practices. By approaching the musicking and practices of the
Smooth Criminals from a similar position, one valuing an aesthetic of disability, we might
uncover new avenues to foster inclusion that might lead us to embracing new aesthetic
possibilities.
My earlier vignette depicting a moment between Karen and Tim demonstrates just one
way that barriers to participation might form when adult assistants aesthetic assumptions of how
rock bands are to sound overrode the aesthetic and social values of young adult members. When

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Karen decided to follow Tims drum groove and when Kelly and I abandoned the foot pedal in
order to comply with the desires of the rest of the band, not only validated the agency and selfdetermination of the young adults in this study, it might have also validated and opened up
emergent, collective aesthetic. Perhaps this aesthetic is beyond purely aural manifestations, but
relates to the desire for human togetherness, community, oneness through and around musicmaking acts.
Bell (2014) notes that in his work with a student diagnosed with Down syndrome the
ways in which his own expectations and assumptions of how a guitar could and should be played
actually became barriers to letting the student fulfill his desired means of making music. The
student wanted to strum a guitar in standard tuning with one hand while singing, using the guitar
as a rhythmic instrument. Bell questions how educators assumptions of technique might be a
disabling factor for musical participation. In what ways might educators assumptions not only
disable students, as Bell suggests, but also disable themselves from experiencing new and
different musicking available by valuing of a aesthetic of disability? What if popular music
learning facilitators set aside their own intuition of what is right in order to better enter the
musical worlds of the students with whom they work? How might such a practice allow us
discover the aesthetics that inform the practices of those with whom we work?
To embrace disability as an aesthetic value requires the employment of an ethic of
accommodation as a starting point for music making and learning. Social musicking spaces and
practices first need be open to all interested participant, but this in and of itself might not make it
completely inclusive. Many disabled people interested in participating in such a musical group
may confront intrapersonal barriers comprised of worries about self-disclosure, judgment, and
rejection due to previous experiences. Thus, practices founded on an ethic of accommodation

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require that all within a musicking group are willing to listen, even follow, as much as they are
willing to speak, or impose their own ideas, to the extent that initial expected practices may be
altered or even dismissed in order to communally make music in a way that honors the difference
and variability of all involved in a music making space. Galloway, Nudd, & Sandahl (2007)
explain that this may require a letting go of preconceived notions of perfectibility (p. 229) and
a valuing an aesthetic of disability. The releasing of preconceived notions and the valuing of
difference might well lead to what Higgins (2012) describes as unconditional hospitality (p.
140) in which potential participants in a musicking practice are welcomed without reservation,
without previous calculation, and . . . [experience] an unlimited display of reception . . . [in
which,] by reaching out beyond what may be thought possible, new and interesting things can
happen (p. 139). Perhaps, as Higgins suggests, unconditional hospitality embraces a future that
will surprise and shatter predetermined horizons (p. 140). One might wonder what new and
wonderful musical and social experiences may lie ahead if one were to value and work with an
aesthetic of disability. What new ways of learning and creating music together might such
experiences and spaces afford?
By no means do I wish to suggest that the Smooth Criminals represents the ideal music learning
practice. There may be much more that we can do to foster inclusion throughout the rock band
program. I wish, instead, to consider what we might learn from the bands practices and how, if
coupled with an ethic of accommodation in which all participants are welcomed with
unconditional hospitality and a validation of their divergent aesthetic values, such practices
might translate into fostering more inclusive pedagogical practices. This would require us to
rethink notions of technique, musicality, genre, and focus in order to open up spaces to include
new and different ways to perform and make music, new ways to be a musician, new musical

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styles, and even considering the importance of identity construction and social communion first
over technical learning. Perhaps, in these openings, in these spaces, a truer sense of inclusivity
might be afforded to disabled persons as well as all potential participants in musicking.

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