AUSTIN, Texas — What started as an after-school experiment at the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired has turned into a full-fledged band that’s not only making music, but building confidence.
Inside a small classroom on the school’s North Austin campus, students learn to make electronic music using analog synthesizers — the kind packed with knobs and switches, not screens. The class, called “Synthesis and Sound Design,” is led by Daniel Butler, a residential specialist who saw opportunity in the tactile instruments.
“I was playing with an old analog synthesizer and realized it was completely tactile,” Butler said. “There were no menus or anything, and I just had this moment of realizing this might be a really cool instrument to teach to students who are blind or have low vision.”…