Episode 306-Making Music Accessible for Everyone with Bryson Tarbet

Bryson Tarbet, founder of That Music Teacher, takes us on a captivating journey through the world of accessible music education. Drawing from his personal experience with ADHD and sensory processing disorder, Bryson reveals how his quest to make the classroom more comfortable for himself evolved into a mission to ensure music is truly accessible for all students.

What begins as a conversation about simple seating arrangements quickly expands into a masterclass on creating fully inclusive music environments. Bryson shares practical approaches like offering flexible seating options, adapting instruments with occupational therapists, and color-coding sheet music to help students make visual connections between notation and instrument fingerings. His ingenious solutions range from simple rubber bands that help students grasp mallets to sophisticated one-handed recorders for students with physical disabilities.

Beyond the technical aspects of accessibility, Bryson offers a profound perspective on the psychological importance of inclusive music education. He explains how introducing instruments like recorders can create a level playing field where students who typically struggle academically can shine, as everyone starts at the same point regardless of past performance. This insight challenges us to rethink how we structure music education to ensure all students have opportunities to succeed.

The conversation takes an unexpected turn when Bryson reveals how COVID-19 forced him to explore alternatives to traditional performance-based music education. This led to the discovery that many seemingly disengaged students were actually deeply musical—they simply resonated with production or technology rather than performance. This revelation has powerful implications for expanding our conception of what music education can and should be.

Ready to make your music classroom more inclusive? Follow @thatmusicteacher on Instagram and visit thatmusicteacher.com to access free resources and join the waitlist for the upcoming Elementary Music Summit, where educators worldwide connect to share ideas for creating truly accessible music education.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to the SJ Childs Show
• 0:36 International Autism Summit Announcement
• 1:06 Meeting Bryson Tarbett
• 4:29 Creating Accessible Music Environments
• 6:59 Accessible Seating Arrangements
• 9:10 Adaptive Musical Instruments
• 14:11 Making Sheet Music Accessible
• 17:20 Inclusive Music Events and Performances
• 22:29 That Music Teacher Platform
• 29:56 Closing Conversation and Song

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

The SJ Childs Show is Backwards' 13th season. Join Sarah Bradford and the SJ Childs Show team as they explore the world of autism and share stories of hope and inspiration. This season, we're excited to bring you more autism summits featuring experts and advocates from around the world.

Speaker 2: 0:30

Go to sjchildsorg hey everyone.

Speaker 3: 0:36

I wanted to take a second to talk to you about the International Autism Summit coming up in April April 25th and 26th. It's going to be streaming free from all of my channels. If you haven't already gone to follow me, go to sgchildsorg. Click on any of the social media icons and go follow me so that you can be with us at the International Autism Summit 2025, april 25th and 26th. Can't wait to see you then. Hi, welcome to the SGA Child Show. Today we are going to have a wonderful discussion about I think we can probably say everyone's one of everyone's favorite topics, right? Music, and I think it is such a universal thing that really touches us in so many different ways. But in this discussion, we'll find out how we're using it to enrich lives of those people that we love. So we are inviting Bryson and is it just pronounced Tarbot? How do I pronounce your last? Okay, perfect, bryson is here today. Really great to meet you. I'm really looking forward to getting into the fascinating and really just like heartwarming.

Speaker 3: 1:58

I think, as you know, all around services and the company that you have. Before we get started, introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about yourself and kind of what got you into this and what brought you here, of course, Well, first of all, thank you for having me.

Speaker 4: 2:17

I am so excited to see where we can take this conversation because, just like you said, I feel like we could take it so many different ways. My name is Bryson Tarbett. I'm based out of Columbus, ohio, and I'm actually an elementary music teacher by trade, but I am currently serving as an independent instructional coach and elementary music specialist for my company that Music Teacher. I had no intention of ever starting a business or leaving teaching, but sometimes the universe just starts, things start happening and you just start taking notice.

Speaker 4: 2:48

I very quickly realized that there wasn't a lot of professional development out there for elementary music teachers, especially when it comes to creating inclusive environments and sensory accessible environments, and I kind of fell down that rabbit hole.

Speaker 4: 3:02

I have ADHD and sensory processing disorder myself, so it was kind of a natural hyper rabbit hole. I have ADHD and sensory processing disorder myself, so it was kind of a natural hyper fixation for me of like, how can I make my classroom more accessible for me as the person who has to be in it all day? But also, you know, how can I make sure that you know? You talk about how music is universal, and we definitely do we talk about music is for everyone, but the longer that I've been doing this work, the more I realize that you know music is for everyone. But the music classroom really isn't until we, as teachers, do the work to make sure that it is. And that's kind of my big passion right now is is how can we, how can we make this more accessible, how can we help these teachers get the professional development they need to do so and just make sure that music is for everyone?

Speaker 3: 3:47

So that's the journey I'm on right now, so important, and, you know, it's probably something that teachers, especially music teachers, maybe don't think about or don't maybe know that they're going to need when they get into, you know, from school to their work and kind of what does that look like in that transition? But what type of accountability, accessibility mixing of words here what kind of accessibility do you think is important when starting and how can people take those steps to make that happen?

Speaker 4: 4:29

Yeah, that's a really good question because I feel like it's so easy to get stuck and I don't know where to start. So I don't know how to start. And I think the reality is is whenever you notice a barrier for, you know, student access in the curriculum, or if you notice a student that isn't fully engaged or fully involved, that's a red flag of like, oh, we need to zoom in here, we need to figure out what's going on here, what's getting in the way, what supports can we give, what things can we remove to make it just generally more accessible. But the answer is gonna be different for every teacher, every school situation, every student. I developed something called the domains of accessibility, which are really just like five places to look to get started.

Speaker 4: 5:11

Me personally, as an individual with ADHD and sensory processing, I tend to start with sensory accessibility because I just notice how big of an impact that can be and how really honestly small changes on the behalf of us as the teacher can have a huge impact in the students that are in front of us.

Speaker 4: 5:32

But really it all comes down to finding out what is the first thing you can do to make it more accessible, the first barrier you can start tipping away at and then, as you start working on that, start noticing what other barriers are seeing along the way. What's wonderfully terrible is that a lot of these things about accessibility they're so interconnected, hold on. What's great about the, you know, and also, quite frankly, very frustrating about a lot of these different domains, is they're so interconnected that when we start kind of tweaking around over here, you'll start to notice other areas that are actually being impacted by different, you know modifications or adaptations, or even just noticing it yourself. You'll start understanding and kind of having a better understanding of what that looks like and how that can be, what that can look to to remove barriers. But I don't know. It really depends on so many of the different situation. But the big thing is just to give it a shot and see what happens and then just keep going from there.

Speaker 3: 6:44

Yeah, so when we walk into a music room, let's say, let's talk about maybe some of the things like seating, for example, what type of accommodations do you give for seating?

Speaker 4: 6:59

So, for me, I was always and I'm for a firm component of just like I'm not a huge fan of having a bunch of furniture in my classroom because of the way that I teach is so movement-based, and so it just requires an empty space.

Speaker 4: 7:14

With that being said, most of my students would kind of our home base would be sitting on the floor. Now, obviously, that's not immediately accessible, so I would always have other options available, right, so we would have chairs as an easy one, some risers available for students that might want them or prefer them. But also, like I didn't really necessarily require my students to sit down all the time, because I know there are some students that if I give them a confined space at the back of you know, if everyone's sitting in front of the chalkboard and they want to stand behind them and kind of you know pace a little bit or kind of move back and forth, I'm okay with that, that's fine. So that's kind of really all what it looks like is just it can be so many different things, but it really comes down to what. Do I really want to get out of this as a teacher, right? Do I really care that all my students are sitting down on the carpet. No care that all my students are sitting down on the carpet.

Speaker 3: 8:11

No, I want them in their own space listening and not messing with anyone else, and if they can do that, we can. It can look a lot of different ways, absolutely, and I really like that too because it can be. There can be a lot of confinement and really rigid kind of boundaries set with like metal chair seating and things, and that can be really hard to be comfortable and then to want to share your talents. Or it may be if a kid is nervous about playing, then having to worry about where I'm sitting and how it's being noisy or anything like that, that would make me so crazy, Um, and so I wouldn't like same with me. You know, um, adhd, so uh, definitely would. Would really mess with my, my sensory stuff too, and I was and and I did choir, so it's like, yeah, why do I need to be sitting? I need to be standing actually to do this good singing, I need to do. So.

Speaker 3: 9:06

What about, like instruments? What type of instruments can be created to be more inclusive or to accommodate, maybe, students with any type of physical um needs or accommodations? Are there better uh instruments that are better for those types of students, or what does that look like? To kind of. I guess it's very individual too. What?

Speaker 4: 9:34

somebody likes isn't it I mean, I always think about when I, when you think about instruments, is there's the physical side of it, of you know, can a student, you know, use proper technique quote, unquote proper technique with, with the way that they are, and you know, sometimes we need to, as the teacher say, you know what, we're not going to have the best technique, but if they're playing the instrument, that's fine. Obviously, you know, working with an occupational therapist can be really helpful. I've worked with our school based OT in the past for students that you know we were adapting a ukulele to basically creating a custom pick that he could grab, or using essentially a cord buddy, which basically is a machine that you have to push one button instead of having to, you know, move your fingers around in different chord shapes to make that a lot more accessible. Even something as simple as something like a mallet cup, which is essentially like a rubber band that goes behind your hand to help you grasp onto a mallet for a drum or for an instrument. Beyond that, there are so many ways that you can use technology now to make accessible instruments. One of my favorite it's called Google Creatability. It's one of those open source Google projects, um, and they have a bunch of different instruments and musical activities, um, that use the webcam and essentially lock you do. They engage in body tracking, so I could make my nose the cursor and I could play, you know, the xylophone by, you know, up and down by moving my head left to right, or you could, you could even, and you can like, match it to like different parts of your body. So, depending on the student, that could be really helpful as well. And then also, you know things like switches that you can use to essentially, you know, just hitting a button can turn, can kind of trigger this chain of events. That's what's really cool is kind of seeing how you know, like you said, it's so individual to the student and what they need and also like what the instrument is itself.

Speaker 4: 11:26

One big rabbit hole that I've gone through lately is we see a lot of people saying, hey, you know, we're doing recorder this year in our class and I have a student that only has use of one arm. What do I do? And there's this company, I think it's called whmi, so one hand, musical instruments and the. They actually create instruments, uh, wind instruments, the recorders, clarinet, saxophones, all these different things, and they actually re-engineer them so that they can be used with one hand, which first of all is just really cool from an engineering side of it the fact that they're able to rework that.

Speaker 4: 12:01

But it's also just such a a needed because, again, that could be a very exclusionary part you know, exclusionary unit in the classroom if we're not really thinking ahead and feeling how can we make this more accessible. So that's kind of something that I've been. I've been kind of diving into a little deeper is are those adaptive instruments and how, how we can utilize them in a general music setting adaptive instruments and how we can utilize them in a general music setting, and are your?

Speaker 3: 12:30

this is going to be a little tricky question, but are your schools generally willing to get those types of things for those students?

Speaker 4: 12:35

That is a very tricky question. For sure I've never had to deal with or I've never had to work with, you know, finding a one-handed musical instrument. I've heard great success stories of school districts doing that and I've heard some that it struggles, but I've also. You know that, for instance, in my district we do recorder. I love the recorder but it's fine motor intensive, right. There's a lot of fine motor skills involved in that.

Speaker 4: 13:01

So we were able to source some recorders that are a little bit more expensive than a traditional recorder but still very accessible price-wise, and the school was able to grab those for us, which just basically took out one aspect of it. You know they, instead of having to fully cover and seal the holes, all they had to do was push it down and it created a seal on itself. That alone has been really helpful for some of my students with fine motor deficits, because they're still playing the recorder, they're still doing everything else. They just don't have to worry because, like a recorder, if you're not sealed along the whole or on the long way, it's not a forgiving instrument. So getting something like that I found really helpful.

Speaker 4: 13:38

Obviously, here in the United States, special education funding is part of the way schools are funded. Special education funding is part of the way schools are funded, so if you have a principal that knows how to find where the money is, a lot of times that can be a thing that would be covered through a student's IEP or special education funding. In that way, I love that.

Speaker 3: 13:56

At least that's the way it's supposed to work, right? And now we've covered seating and instruments. Let's talk about sheet music and accessibility, screen reading, things like that. What kind of options do students have when it comes to that?

Speaker 4: 14:12

I mean, that's one of those things where I there are some music educators out there that are very firm that you know students are not to be writing in their notes and their music. That's, it's a crutch, it's not helping them. That, first of all, I'm not one of those people Like, if you want to write in your stuff, I don't care. But I think you bring up a really good point that there are just so many options and I think that's where you know if you have. You know, one of my best friends is a teacher of the visually impaired and we kind of talk about this every in a while, never enough, because it's another one of those things where it's typically not something that you've had a lot of experience as a teacher when you have a student that has that need. So I've never necessarily worked with a student that has a severe vision impairment, but I have worked with a lot of students that had a struggle with tracking left to right. So for me, one of the big things that I would do is to help with that left to is first break it into smaller chunks. So instead of having you know 100 measures on the first line, break it up into like five or 10 so that they don't have to. They're able to shift down a line more, they're not moving left to right. Me personally, I didn't even realize this, as when I was in high school I would occasionally especially if it was a really big score with lots of things I would actually mark where the measure lines were to show, basically to give me more anchors to go back and look for. I didn't realize that. That was, you know, part of the way that I process things and it made that helpful One of my favorite examples of making sheet music more accessible, which, first of all, you don't need sheet music to be a great musician. I'm just going to put that out there and we're probably going to make some people mad with that, but like, yes, music literacy is very important, but it doesn't it doesn't the only thing, but anyway, one of my favorite things that I've ever done to make sheet music more accessible was color coding it.

Speaker 4: 16:00

It was my first year of teaching. We had a student that when I gave her the recorder, she was really understanding of. You know. A, b I'm going to put the thumb in the first finger. A, I'm going to put thumb, first finger and second finger, and then she could also read the music. If it's on the middle line it's going to be a B, if it's on the space below that it's an A.

Speaker 4: 16:16

But connecting the two there was a disconnect. So for that student I essentially grabbed some binder, reinforcer, the little circle label things, I put them over the holes in the recorder and I grabbed some whatever highlighters I had in my desk and essentially color coded so blue is B, purple is A or whatever, and then I color coded her music just by highlighting different notes. Not only was that giving her some more visual cues of where how to get back you know, if she's going back and forth, how to come back but it also created a different type of connection, a color connection that allowed that student to be successful. Did all of my students need that? No, could any of my students that wanted to do that do that? Sure, but that's one of my favorite ways to kind of make that a little bit more accessible.

Speaker 3: 16:58

Yeah, no, I really like that. I think that that's a good idea and there's just so many different types of learning that having that knowledge of the different types of learning and then you know, putting that into your teaching is so important, especially well, just in, especially in, special education, but with and we're really with everything, because you can really hone in and help those students nurture their skills and their talents and those things that they really love. What type of encouragement or do you guys do, like concerts or, you know, talent shows, things like that? What kind of special events do you guys do with your kids?

Speaker 4: 17:41

The way that my district always was is essentially every grade level had a showcase night. They had a concert every night or every oh, not every night, goodness every year. And you know it looked different every year, but I tried to design it in a way where it wasn't just doing the same thing. So, for instance, kindergarten was basically I would invite the teacher or the students, no, I would invite the parents, the grownups, to essentially just watch a lesson in the way that I would normally teach it. Just, I had all of my kindergartners all at once. Um, just like show what's going on. Fourth grade was always our recorder concert. Um, third grade, we always did a family folk dance night where we got to bring them you know, bring families in and teach them what we're doing. And and the reason I did that was a few reasons. One I didn't want it to be boring or the same thing every time. You know I don't want it to. I'm fully aware that not every student likes to stand up there and sing in front of people. So by giving them different options, that alone just makes my classroom a little bit more accessible, because we're not just doing the same thing, we're trying, we're activating and using music in so many different ways. But beyond that, I also wanted to allow students to have things that were kind of leveling.

Speaker 4: 18:53

One of the things that I noticed very early on in my career is if a student was struggling with reading, they would, you know, if they started struggling with reading in first grade. They tend to struggle, you know, hopefully improving, but they tend to still struggle, as you know, compared to their peers, as they grow. When they get to that third grade, fourth grade year, that's where really the social deficit comes in, because they're starting to realize that I'm, you know, like they. They they kind of put up a wall and they don't want to try new things because it could mean they could fail.

Speaker 4: 19:22

My favorite part about the recorder, which we'd always did in fourth grade, is nobody has ever played the recorder before. So everybody's back on that same page. And I've seen some of my students who academically struggled the most and and you know, needed the most supports and the most most um, you know, one-on-one assistant. I've seen them activate so much because it is something that they're able to be on the same level as their peers. And I don't know people, some people, let's be honest, a lot of people hate the recorder. Even in the music, music ed community there's a lot of teachers that don't know people, some people let's be honest, a lot of people hate the recorder.

Speaker 3: 20:00

Even in the music, music and community there's a lot of teachers that don't teach recorder, but that right there is exactly why I will always talk about the praises of why a recorder should be part of an elementary music. Yeah, I think that that's a really great point to make make. It can be a really big struggle for kids when they have that identification that they are behind or, you know, and not only with one or two, but with a group or the entire class, if that is the matter. So, yeah, that's really, that's really tricky, and it kind of got me thinking, as, as you were talking about that, what does that look like? What other options can we give to kids who, you know, don't want to have an instrument, don't want to sing, they don't want to dance? Can we offer things like music production and these are some of the things we do behind the scenes Like what does that look like?

Speaker 4: 20:52

Yeah, so COVID obviously did a number on education in general, but music education what a lot of, a lot of things came out of that. I mean, for instance, even where I was teaching out in a pretty rural area, there was maybe up most of a year so I was able to sing in my classroom for about a month because of the requirements that the county had set. So that's a lot of what I did in my in my classroom. You know I can't just supplement a recorder because that's the same problem. So we you know me and a lot of other music educators we started realizing what else is there, and I as much as COVID was a really rough time.

Speaker 4: 21:36

One of the really good things that came out of me personally was realizing that some of the students I thought just really didn't really care about music. They were very musical, they just didn't want to perform. So by being able to bring in aspects of like, what other jobs are out there in music, what are some other things in there? You know, part of COVID was we all got, you know, all the students were able to have Chromebooks so we were able to use digital audio workstations and mix our own music and stuff. And seeing some of those students that traditionally would not have been quote unquote a success story in my classroom really kind of shifted my own thinking about what music should be in this type of setting.

Speaker 4: 22:15

Now there's a bigger discussion that needs to be had and thankfully is starting to be had about, you know what do we do with high school music Band and choir is not the only thing and you know how can we get more of this music production, music business, and there's so much out there that I think there's a great conversation happening in the music education community of how do we connect the reality of what music is in their at-home lives to what we what it looks like in our schools, because right now there is a disconnect and I think we're starting to make some, some shifts. But yeah, there's, music is for everyone. We just need to make sure that we've we've done the work to make sure it is.

Speaker 3: 22:52

I love that. Let's come back around to that music teacher and talk about how that came about and what it is means to the teachers and music teachers out there now.

Speaker 4: 23:09

I. It was a complete accident. I had no intention of ever doing this, um, essentially, what it what it was, what happened? What it what happened was, um, I left undergrad. I graduated in the fall, so I had, you know, the vast majority of the school year um ahead of me, but I wasn't teaching music. So I actually spent the majority of my first year out of undergrad, um working as a special education assistant. I loved it, um, but I missed the music classroom. So I created an Instagram account that music teacher and just basically followed as many music teachers as I could find so I could live vicariously through them. That's how it all started. And then I started.

Speaker 4: 23:47

When I started teaching, I just started sharing my own experience what was working, what wasn't. I accidentally created essentially a diary of my entire teaching career, which is really weird to look back on. And in 2020, when COVID happened, like a lot of us no, us music teachers didn't know what we were doing I thankfully had one resource that basically blew up and was really, really helpful in this time, and that's how I realized, oh, there's something here. So I, you know, I formally registered my LLC and that was kind of the beginning of what we have now. We do virtual summits and we have a membership that has professional development opportunities, because the big thing we realized is that teachers want, you know, music teachers. We really want to do more. We just don't know how to get started or where to find that information.

Speaker 4: 24:38

We jokingly refer to it as music teacher island, because the reality is we're likely the only music teachers in our building. Some of us are even the only music teachers in our district. So if we're going to get those new ideas, that collaboration, that professional development, it's not going to come from our schools. So that's kind of how we, you know. Again, I never meant to do this, but I'm so glad I get to and I'm so glad I get to impact classrooms beyond my own. I'm not going to lie. It was a very tough decision to leave the classroom because I love the people I work with, I love the students I got to work with, but being able to work with teachers all over the world and see how the work that I was doing and the work that I was able to facilitate and connect people was creating such a more lasting impact that I had to at least give it a shot. And that's where we're at right now is how can we get more professional development in the hands of the teachers all over the world?

Speaker 3: 25:33

Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. And so what does that look like when they go to your website? What do they, what will they be looking for? How do they reach out to you? Kind of what's that process.

Speaker 4: 25:46

Yeah. So on our main site, thatmusicteachercom, we have some freebies about halfway down the page that you can download to kind of dive in a little deeper Up in the top right bar we have the Elementary Music Summit. That is our big professional development conference that we'll be having this summer. We have a wait list there right now.

Speaker 4: 26:05

Those are kind of the big ways that you can get in contact with us and kind of see some of the work we do. And as we do more and we start making more connections, that's where we'll keep things updated oh, and keep growing, definitely.

Speaker 3: 26:19

And what about your instagram? Is that still going? Can you share that with us?

Speaker 4: 26:23

and yes, so our instagram. It's changed a little bit, you know, in the ways that we run and what we post, but we still post lots of content about elementary music, specific professional development and that is at that, music teacher.

Speaker 3: 26:37

Perfect. See if my typing is going to be working here. I think we got it. There it goes, that music teacher. So go and follow those social medias.

Speaker 3: 26:50

Check out the website that music teacher dot com and you can learn more about professional development and how to make your music and your room your teaching styles sounds like a whole bunch of things accessible for an inclusive environment. Some ideas and you know, I love that you said that because it is a small, you know, group of people in the community that are the music teachers, and it's so wonderful that you're creating this place to kind of come together, and I also hold summits, and so I know how special and wonderful they can be and how you can really bring people together in such an amazing way. They get so much out of it when they walk away from it and they've been able to get ideas, like you said, that wouldn't otherwise be available to them through their district, the other teachers that they're working with, so I really love those ideas. It's been so wonderful getting to know you today. What's next? What's coming up? Anything other than the summit in the summer.

Speaker 4: 28:08

Honestly, right now we are just, you know, heads down planning for the summit. We're hoping this is going to be the biggest one yet and we're really excited to be able to to kind of keep working on that. With that being said, I thank you so much for having me. I love being able to share the part of the journey and anyone that I'm able to impact and help, you know, make, make something a little bit more inclusive and and share that. While music sometimes, historically, can get very elitist and classist and ableist, I think the reality is that there are so many people with their boots on the ground that are trying to change that image.

Speaker 3: 28:43

Yeah, absolutely, and you're one of them. So thank you so much in pioneering this type of services for music teachers around the globe. Really, if I'm sure that anyone can reach out to you, so please do that and go, follow and be supportive and find out how you can make a better, inclusive classroom environment, home music room for your kids if you're a homeschool home teacher. So let's just make these changes and help change this world into a better place. That's what we're doing. So thank you so much, bryce, and it was so great to get to know you. I really look forward to hearing more about the summit. Hopefully get back to me around the summertime. Let's have you back on and do a couple lives, maybe, and send some extra people your way that you know love music as well.

Speaker 4: 29:35

That would be wonderful, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 2: 29:55

I look forward to staying in touch. Thank you so much. In the heart of the city, she's shining bright. Oh yeah, stories of love and courage All throughout the night, her voice resonating An anthem for all. Through the trials and the trials, she answers the call. Her mother and her father Breaking barriers and strife, with love as her guide. She'll never hide. She's changing the world for you With her heart and speech and strong Empathies and melody. In her journey we all belong. Followers gather like stars in the night. So bright, 44,000 voices sharing in the light. She stands for family, advocates for more, a movement of compassion, ways we'll soar.

Speaker 2: 30:50

Podcasts together Symphony of support Creating life Changing rapport. Podcast together symphony of support Creating life changing report. She's changing the world for you With a heart that's fierce and strong. Empathies, a melody, a journey we all belong. Through her eyes, a vision clear. Together we riseding fears. In every heart, she plants the seed of understanding and love for dearly me. She's changing the world for you With a heart that's fierce and strong, empathies and melodies In a journey we all belong.