“I am delighted to be the recipient of the 2022-2023 JSoM Innovation Faculty Grant. This grant will support the MusiColAbility Project which seeks to provide opportunities for collaborative musical learning between IU students and musicians with disabilities in the Bloomington community. I am so grateful to the committee and Dean Bush for their investment in a project that I believe will have value for the students of IU and make a significant impact on musicians with disabilities in our community. “
Amanda R. Draper is an Assistant Professor of Music Education and the 2022-2023 Gretsch Fellow in Children’s Music with the Fred Rogers Institute. Her academic interests include investigating musical experiences for diverse learners with a focus on music and autism research, Disability Studies in music, and teacher preparation for special music education. Dr. Draper has presented regionally, nationally, and internationally and has articles published in the Journal of Research in Music Education, Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, and Music Educators Journal. She previously taught elementary and middle school general music, most recently for Chicago Public Schools.
Dr. Amanda Draper’s project delves into the under-researched topic of people with disabilities studying music. Meeting weekly to collaborate in a group setting, the class was open to people who identified with disabilities and their families, while Indiana University JSoM students helped Draper run the class. Designed mainly for young children, the group enjoyed a drum circle and other fun activities focused on merely making music together in a welcome setting.
The project featured an early childhood program called ComeAllYa as well as a course of collaborative music lessons. ComeAllYa met with five children over the ten-week semester, and two musicians were provided with weekly individual instruction. With twenty-one JSoM volunteers, Draper was unable to utilize all of the excited students due to the size of the very first MusCoAbility. This is something she expects to remedy in the fall semester with the natural expansion of the project through word of mouth.
Most of the involved students expressed interest in returning for a second semester of music classes, letting Dr. Draper know that they were also encouraging their friends and acquaintances to join the project in the fall. With students ranging in age from four to forty, parents, families, and caregivers all shared how impactful the project had been on the everyday life of each student.