Tuning in: Music Industry Arts grad opens unique Ottawa music academy

Posted on Tuesday, June 26th, 2018

The post on the Facebook page of a fledgling Ottawa music academy reads like another social media platitude: “A lack of sight does not mean a lack of vision.”

However, when you sit down with local musician Mubarak Farah, founder of the music school Ability Through Music, you soon realize the adage is most appropriate. Born in Somaliland, an autonomous region of Somalia, with glaucoma, and blind since early childhood, Farah is a man with an abundance of vision.

“I knew there were a lot of people out there with disabilities who can’t seem to find accessible (music) instructors … willing to tailor the lessons to the student,” says Farah. “I really feel Ability Through Music is my true calling.”

Ability Through Music is a music academy for children and adults living with physical and developmental disabilities. “I want this to be a full-service music school with song-writing workshops, lessons on a variety of instruments, a performance program – the whole nine yards.”

Farah started playing piano when he was eight years old, picking out the melodies of the Somali folk music he heard on cassettes his dad brought with him when the family emigrated to Canada. “At first I just wanted to mimic what the musicians on those cassettes were playing, but as time went on, I started to discover all these other different styles.”

He began piano lessons at 12, but was frustrated by instructors who, for the most part, had no clue how to teach a blind person. Still he persisted, his love of music growing. He became an accomplished blues pianist, performing with a local band. He knew he wanted to make music a full-time career, and he knew he needed help to make that happen.

He turned to Algonquin College’s Introduction to Music Industry Arts one-year certificate program. It provides a practical grounding in the music industry for students interested in performance, songwriting and music recording.

“I had been playing music pretty much my whole life and I wanted to understand the business aspect of it: how to market myself as a musician; what goes into things like touring and booking shows; what goes into the social media aspect of things,” Farah says.

Algonquin’s Music Industry Arts program was a perfect fit, he says, in part because the program’s instructors were willing to tailor it to his specific needs as a blind student.

“I do things a lot differently when it comes to accessing course material and that sort of thing, and … they were very accommodating,” says Farah. “They would send me the course material in a format I could read … Their door was always open, if I had questions.”

Farah went into the program keen on the performance opportunities it offered, but found that his favourite course was far from the spotlight. It concentrated on the commercial side of music.

“What I got out of (this) class was that my music is my business … that I have to start thinking about it as a business, and I have to run it like a business. That class instilled in me the entrepreneurial spirit.”

That spirit eventually gave rise to Ability Through Music. Thanks to his course work at Algonquin, he had the means to pursue his vision. “In May of last year, I put together my business plan. I knew there was a market for this,” Farah says.

He had in mind a school where instructors encouraged students to have fun with music and taught in a way that was accessible to people with different needs.

“The lessons I learned (at Algonquin) definitely shaped my path. It’s because of that program that I now own my own business. I took a lot of what the instructors said to heart. It’s because of them that I’m here today.”

Farah has some advice for future graduates from the Introduction to Music Industry Arts Program: “Be open-minded about the industry. You get out there with one dream and you find yourself following another. I know that’s how it was for me.”


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