By Stephanie Bailey , video by Stephani Blendis for CNN
When Kyungho Jeon was young, he dreamed of playing in an orchestra, but his teachers feared it would be too difficult — not because he lacked musical talent, but because he was born blind, and couldn’t see a conductor’s movements to follow their cues.
“I was really sad,” says Jeon, “but I never gave up and kept pursuing a musical career.”
Jeon, 32, says he was drawn to music from an early age, connecting the sounds of nature with tonal colors.
“When I listen to music, I feel many motifs,” says Jeon. “I feel the brightness and darkness, and warmth and coldness.”
He was fascinated by percussion and eventually became an accomplished marimba soloist. But his visual impairment still made it hard to play with an orchestra.
If the conductor moves the baton to the right, the receiver on Jeon’s right side will instantly vibrate. If the conductor moves to the left, Jeon feels the vibration in the corresponding receiver.
“I can feel with my body what I cannot see,” says Jeon. “Through the vibration that is delivered by the device, I can feel how the conductor beats: strong, soft, smooth or long.”
Accessible dreams
The World Health Organization estimates that globally, at least 2.2 billion people have some form of visual impairment or blindness. Matossian hopes the device will help more visually impaired musicians join orchestras.
“If you look around the orchestra today, you’ll see almost no players of disability,” he says. “There are millions of players around the world of exceptional quality, who just happen to be visually impaired. Now with this new invention, there’s no excuse for orchestras not to have visually impaired members.”
The baton has allowed Jeon to play alongside blind and sighted musicians, and now he has another ambition: to conduct an orchestra. Read more from CNN.
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