Adaptive Use Musical Instruments (AUMI) software enables students who have very little voluntary mobility or other varieties of impairments to create and perform electronic sounds and sequences in order to participate in solo and ensemble electronic music improvisation and composition.

An original member of the AUMI team, programmer and RPI student Zane van Duzen, developed an initial computer program in the first year of the project that enabled students with very limited mobility (head turning only), confinement to wheelchairs and no speach to generate musical rhythms and scalar patterns.

The AUMI program incorporates camera tracking so that no invasive devices are necessary. Their improvised head movements enables the students to create rhythmic patterns and to communicate with others musically in the drum class led by therapist Leaf Miller of Abilities First, Inc. Additionally, a virtual keyboard is played with lateral head movement along the virtual keys to create scalar melodies.

In the second year the computer program was expanded, updated and improved using information from Miller in collaboration with Deep Listeninbg Institute programmer Zevin Polzin. Each session with the students yielded new information and improvement in their participation.

Now in the third year of use The AUMI program continues to be revised and improved with input from the technologists, students, therapists and feedback from registered users.  The latest initiative is the development of a training program for therapists, aides, parents and teachers in the use of AUMI software and improvisation.