About this episode

The episode features a discussion with Renee and Tristan from NVision Guitars about creating accessible guitars for musicians with physical or visual barriers.

What if, instead of asking a musician to adapt to their guitar, you built the guitar to adapt to the musician? On this episode of The Tone Mob Podcast, I’m hanging out with Renee and Tristan from NVision Guitars, a mother-and-son team building some seriously cool instruments with an even cooler purpose behind them. NVision makes handcrafted guitars for players who may face physical or visual barriers with a traditional instrument. That includes their sensory navigation system, which uses tactile markers on the back of the neck and differently shaped controls to help players navigate the instrument by touch rather than sight. We get into where the idea came from, Tristan teaching himself to build guitars, Renee’s 27-year career in the federal government and military, the terrifying health scare that helped push them toward something more meaningful, and why they decided to take the leap into the guitar business together. We also talk about designing alongside blind and low-vision musicians instead of simply guessing what they need, the realities of running a small family business, NAMM, death metal wedding music, Tenacious D, homemade stuffed-crust pizza, and apparently phenomenal…

People in this episode

Host: Blake Wyland

Guests: Renee, Tristan

Topics covered

• guitar design
• accessibility
• handcrafted instruments
• family business
• musical innovation

Keywords

• guitar
• accessibility
• NVision Guitars
• handcrafted
• musicians
• sensory navigation system
• family business
• interview

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: NVision Guitars

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