Hacking, disability, and music education

The purpose of our study was to examine how hacking – as discussed and displayed by participants of Monthly Music Hackathon NYC – could inform making music education practices more accessible and inclusive, if at all, for people with disabilities. Free and open to the public, Monthly Music Hackathon NYC hosts non-competitive community-based events in which participants – musicians, educators, coders, and software/hardware designers from beginner to expert – work on projects collaboratively over the course of a day to address real-world problems posed by stakeholders in their communities. Our research team consisting of the principal investigator and two research assistants attended and videorecorded the events of Monthly Music Hackathon NYC’s ‘Music AccessAbility’ hackathon. In this article, we detail what constitutes hacking at this event and how participants approached hacking disability. We discuss the potential of hacking in music education to create a more accessible and inclusive field, and the importance of championing a disability-led design model as the ethical way forward.