Interview: Empowering Disabled Musicians, Composers and Singers Like You with Able Artist Foundation Founder Stephen Letnes
Film score composer Stephen Letnes crafted the music for the Emmy-nominated documentary film, Beneath the Ink. What many do not know about him is that he is visually impaired and relates to everything you or your friends have experienced as a working disabled entertainment industry professional! Learn more about the ways he helps disabled musicians with the Able Artist Foundation. Are you a disabled musician? Join the Able Artist Foundation for free at http://www.ableartist.org.
PLEASE INTRODUCE YOURSELF AND THE ABLE ARTIST FOUNDATION!
My name is Steven Letnes. I am a film composer and the founder and executive director of Abel Artist Foundation. I have been scoring music for a little over a decade now. Stared doing a lot of short films, then moved into a couple features, independent features that we got released through some studios, and then in recent years, I've been primarily focused on documentaries. We had an Emmy nominated documentary called Beneath the ink, as well as another Emmy nominated documentary called, Say His Name: Five Days for George Floyd. And then I started Able Artist Foundation about five years ago, 'cause as I was getting started…
I should probably mention, I am disabled. I am blind, I have what's called retinitis pigmentosa, so I have some usable vision, but I have a lot of assistive technology. My studio is decked out for me, just like we all make our workspaces specific to us. I’m no different, so I have accessible controllers like Native Instruments’ Komplete Control. If I choose not to try to look at the screens… but if I do choose to work on my Steinberg Cubase rig, I have magnifiers, and if I need to read long stuff, I just have my iPad read stuff to me, so I have usable vision. But I don’t drive. I live in downtown Minneapolis, so I can get anywhere I want.
And I started Able Artist Foundation because when I started out, I was super low income, and I was like, “How can anybody, especially people with disabilities, afford these tens of thousands of dollars worth of software and hardware? This is stupid! This is like a luxurious type of business that I'm trying to get into,” and at first I took it out om myself, like “Who do I think I am trying to get into this? This obviously isn’t for me.” I had nobody to look up to. Nobody with disabilities was out in Hollywood about being a composer and having a disability and I’m from Minnesota. I didn’t think there was a path for me in.
Well, thankfully, I just kept working on it, and I'm there. But anyway, so I started Able Artist Foundation for low income people who identify as disabled, and I started it with the discount program. That was the very first program we started with, where people could become members, and I'll explain how in a little bit. It’s free, it's private, it's for your entire life, and you get 50% off discounts on all of our partners’ software products, and we have four dozen companies across the planet. These are Spitfire Audio, Orchestral Tools, Sound Iron, Cine Samples.
And then recently, we got into hardware and we partnered with Focus Right. And because that's hardware involved and not just software keys, we thought that 30% would be fair for both parties. They focus where I can cover their costs, and yet our members still feel they are receiving a decent enough discount, and you don't have to hurry up and wait. There are no sales. That was one thing I was annoyed by when I was super, super low income, there would be all these sales like, “Hurry up. Go buy this new heavy acidy product,” and I was like, “Well, I don't have the money to..” And then two weeks later, now I do have the money, now I can't afford it, I'm like, “Forget this.” I hate this because people don't advertise towards people with limited income in that way. It's all just hurry up, hurry p. So I decided Able Artist would not be a hurry up and buy. You buy when you want. You come to us, you become a member, you get the discount, you use it when you want.
To become a member, obviously, you identify as disabled. And for the discount program, you must be receiving federal benefits, like in the US, it's SSI or SSDI, that's like supplemental security income, Social Security disability. It's federal benefits, there's about 9 million on SSI and about probably another 9.5 million on SSI for federal benefits, and most countries have these in the UK, specifically England has D:A or PIP, Quebec has a pension or program, and we've got hundreds of members from over 32 countries. Down from Croatia, Bosnia, Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, all over the place. And so when you become a member by our second step, first step is just an e-mail verification, ableartist.org/register, you choose become a member, we verify that it's your e-mail, and then the next step when you get on our site is you upload your paperwork. They send us a state ID, your passport and your federal benefits letter, and that's what I mean by like an SSDI letter, is that they're in a ward letter, that's what the government calls it, or just a statement showing that you receive SSI/SSDI. Or your country's equivalent. We also certainly and absolutely are delighted to support our wounded veterans, so if you have been assigned any type of disability level as someone who served our country, you are more than welcome to register and become a free and private member of Able Artist Foundation, whether it's 1% disabled, 100% disabled. It doesn't matter, you served our country, come on board..
FOR PEOPLE WHO HAVE NOT READ MUCH ABOUT IT, WHAT ARE ALL OF THE BENEFITS OF HAVING A FREE YEARLY MEMBERSHIP TO THE ABLE ARTIST FOUNDATION?
When it comes to benefits of membership, I really use those terms loosely. We are quickly becoming a job creator, so what you end up having access to are these discounts as well as a couple of our other programs. We used to have a grant program, but that became pretty cumbersome and we're a small operation. Very few of us are able to work on this. It's mostly volunteer basis. And we have five programs. So the grant program, we did, and we've paused doing that for now. We’ll bring it back, but just we don't have the infrastructure to keep it going. We have a contest which people who don't receive SSI SSDI, can still register with us for these annual contests and you submit your music, it's just like any other music contest, except we actually try to make work out of it by partnering with some type of company to review your stuff, so like for a few years, we partnered with a licensing company called Hit List Music, they would review some of the winners’ material and if it was cool, they did onboard them into the album, so we can get licensing work for them.
But some of the main prizes were like last year we had 21 Partners participate. Our number one and number two winners got about $6,000 worth of software, so we're gonna be doing contests. Again, you do not need to be on SSI. SSDI or any federal benefits for that, just you got a disability? Send us your stuff. We don’t need proof for that stuff.
Able Artist Foundation has enough standing in the entertainment industry now that I'll often get calls or e-mails from producers on shows or movies saying, Hey, we're looking for this type of person,” and so for example... A little over a year ago, I had a producer of a show on Apple TV+ called See starring Jason Mamoa. They reached out to me. “Bear McCreary is our composer, and we’re looking to find some blind string players. Violin, cello, all that kind of stuff. Point us to some.” So I did some sleuthing and reached out to people, and we identified a visually impaired violinist and got her work on the show, and they've called her multiple times to work on multiple seasons, so that is something I'm really delighted about, actually getting people paid for the work. That’s just when opportunities arise.
We partnered with a licensing company called Mpath Tracks. The CEO is Mirette Seireg. She is amazing. She's out in LA, and they do tons of work, but they're a licensing company, so they put out albums through Sony Music and APM of licensed material for our films and TVs to check out into license and to use and pay royalties to the artists. So for the past couple of years, we've been working with them. And her husband, who's TV composer, Michael Levine, he’s also a fantastic mentor too, but we just released an album full of music written and scored all by our disabled members, disabled composers, and we're doing it again in 2023. So we're gonna see how long this program lasts. But everything is flexible. The only thing that hasn't been flexible is the discount program. That is our bread and butter, but we don't get bread and butter, we don't get paid because of our discounts. We don't get money back for any of this. We are a donor funded 5013 through donors and grants. We don't ever get any money for anything else that we do. This industry stinks with getting work in the first place, and then you have a disability, and people might shy away, or the people with disabilities might not be sure how to go about stuff. There needs to be some more infrastructure for this largest underrepresented group on the planet, and we're a fourth of the population just in the US.
AS A WORKING FILM COMPOSER, YOU SHOW DISABLED MUSICIANS THAT YOU CAN INDEED HAVE A CAREER AND NON-DISABLED PEOPLE IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY THAT HIRING A DISABLED PERSON IS NOT HIRING AN INCAPABLE PERSON. WHAT SIMPLE TOOLS HELP YOU SEE WELL AND GET THINGS DONE SO IT’S ALL ABOUT YOUR MUSIC WORK?
I have a fully accessible studio, so that all I have to do is focus on my work. Now I have everything everybody else does. I got keyboards and peripherals and great studio monitors and an awesome PC with all the software that I need, more than I need. Everybody working in the industry has far more than they need, and it's... You really only have like 5% or 10% of your tools that you always go back to, and I am no different in that respect, but when it comes to accessibility, well, I have Native Instruments’ Komplete Control keyboards, which are great if I choose that I don't wanna look at their screens 'cause I have some usable vision, but it's a pain, so I can turn on alt shift on my Komplete Control keyboard and it'll talk to me as I touch the knobs called capacitives. So if I choose not to look at the screen, I don't need them. Which I would think could be great for non-disabled people too, but then with my PC, I have magnifiers, so I just use basic Windows magnifier. I’m gonna jack it up 300%, 400%, 500% to use Steinberg Cubase, and then I just have other peripherals, I'm gonna use my iPad, my iPhone, I use voiceover speech text, sometimes the magnifier on that, so magnification is primarily my weapon of choice for accessibility.
Very few directors and producers and show runners will send me stuff and actually ask me, “Hey, how can we make this accessible?” And so I have all the tools, so if they forget to ask or if they don't ask, they don't have to worry about it, but also they should because they should be hiring more people with disabilities anyway. If you can identify accommodations to make work a little more accessible for an underrepresented group, like a quarter of the population, if we're disabled people you hire, it's gonna make work for non-disabled people or people with other things that are needed, all that much better. You can ride up on curbs, that’s for wheelchair users that got that done, and people on strollers and skateboarders and bicyclists love that stuff. Texting was one of the original ideas was for deaf and hard of hearing people to communicate. Gee! Wonder where that went in today’s society? So there are a lot of tools that when designed intentionally specifically for people with disabilities end up working out for the mass population anyway.
But I have all the tools ready to hand and thankfully, they're not that expensive. Just like most accommodations for work spaces, they're not expensive. Most in fact, are free.
WHEN YOU FIRST GOT ACQUAINTED WITH COMPOSING, WERE YOU VISUALLY IMPAIRED? HOW CAN PEOPLE HANDLE LEARNING MUSIC OR IMPROVING THEIR SKILLS WITHOUT SEEING SHEET MUSIC? HOW CAN A HEARING IMPAIRED PERSON IMPROVE ON MUSIC SKILLS?
I was born with retinitis pigmentosa. I've been blind all of my life. It's slowly gone downhill. I would say up until college, I was technically legally blind with corrected vision, meaning the 20/200 number. So what I see at 20 feet, somebody could see at 200 feet, but in my early 20s, that's when my vision started to get worse. Well, it's stabilized now. But it's not as good as it once was, and I'm super light sensitive. So I spend a lot of time indoors. The sun is not my friend, so that's all right, I hang out in the studio. That's fine with me.
And learning to compose, funny enough, I was kicked out of a composition class in college because they would not teach somebody who did not know how to read sheet music because being legally blind was the term. They tried to teach me how to read sheet music, but it was pointless, and so what did I learn? I learned the Suzuki method, which is by ear, and the teacher teaches the right hand, then the the left hand, then you put them together, and so I can pretty much hear anything and then with some practice, play it. So I grew up learning all the Chopins and Rachmaninoff and Bachs and all that fun stuff, as well as writing my own solo piano music. I never learned how to read sheet music, and nobody would teach me.
What I learned as composition writing, film scores, like, “How do I do this?” And some people who have the funds to do it, go to a film school to learn how to score for films, but I didn't. I learned on YouTube, so like a lot of people do, 'cause I was gonna go back to school for it. I had enough of an understanding of basic structure from writing piano music and my lessons back in the day. I've never had to rely on sheet music, and if I ever need sheet music for the musicians that I hire... Well, then I hire an orchestrator, and then I hire a copyist, and then I hire the musicians, so I don't have to read sheet music.
People have to identify the way they learn best. “I want to know how to specifically orchestrate for an actual orchestra” right now. Again, YouTube videos. Master classes. I took a lot of master classes. Mike Verda, he's got these cheap $30 classes, six to 10 hours long, and there is no better class if you wanna learn to orchestrate, spend 30 bucks, go get a six hour class, they're all prerecorded, but such an abundance of knowledge and super accessible financially. There are no orchestration books in Braille. There are no orchestration CDs or MP3s or even way back in the day on tape for someone to listen to to understand crescendop and here, when you put two flutes together, it's gonna feather in real nicely with the strings, or if you play the strings at half and you blast the french horns, at triple forte, nobody's gonna hear the strings.T here's no orchestration books other than print with pictures for people to actually learn those specific lessons, and so it's piece from here, a piece from there, but thankfully there's so much information out there, you can piece it together. We’re all jigsaw puzzlers out there learning how to do this, and I'll be learning how to do this until I'm not allowed to live anymore.
DO YOU EVER HELP PEOPLE WITH SIMPLE GOALS BEYOND WHATEVER YOU EXPECTED WHEN STARTING THE FOUNDATION? THINGS LIKE HELPING THEM FIND A GOOD MUSIC TEACHER OR PROVIDING ADVICE?
I have mentored quite a few composers. People will reach out, even just one offs, people will just have one question, and so they'll email me... Actually, how about let me give you this email address: steve@ableartist.org. They’ll have questions about career or a resume, nobody reads resumes, so at least not in this industry, but they do research you, so clean up your social media folks. I learned that one. Some of my work involves working with studios and they research who they're hiring, but they don't ask you for a resume, so what that information on that, as you will... It's good to have a positive public profile, that's what that is. It's PR, how good is your PR with yourself and the person you're projecting yourself to be? Whether that's an authentic self or as a professional, that's all that I was meaning. But yeah, I've had mentored quite a few composers on a consistent basis, one of my mentees is actually, his name is KJ or Kim Algoureh from Turkey, and he won our first year's contest, and since then he has proved invaluable. I've hired him for several of my film projects to be an assistant and in some cases, write some of the music, which I give him credit for on screen, and then he actually is helping with some Able Artist Foundation stuff too. He's indispensable and I am able to push some work his way if I'm busy. So yeah, because he's demonstrated that he is accountable. He's kind. A really good communicator, takes initiative and writes cool music and writing cool music wasn't first on the list folks.
I've also been invited by Sony last year, and again this year, last year is Sony Music flew me to Vancouver to mentor underrepresented composers. BIPOC. First Nation. People who identify as disabled. And I probably had one on one conversations or meetings with about 22 of them, and that's a lot of fun to do, but I try to compartmentalize that and just give them parts of the time of the day, say when people reach out. It’s just like anything, just like, How do you structure your day? When people ask you for something, you don't have to jump on it, you just... You use this part of your day for, I'm gonna write music on this part of the day, I'm gonna work on PR for this part of the day, I'm gonna mentor during this one day a week for this many hours, and obviously all of this is fungible. it's all over the map. It's all amorphous, but you do your best to put barriers or constraints around things, 'cause you wanna have a life yourself too, right?
HOW CAN NON-DISABLED EMPLOYERS AND STUDIOS BE MORE CONSIDERATE OF DISABLED MUSICIANS?
Well, one way is to have people identify as disabled on your staff. You probably do already. You just don’t know it 'cause everybody is nervous about sharing and they don't have to share if they have a disability, but there are so many types of disabilities out there. I know one composer who is somewhat open about their disability, but they don't advocate, they're not out about it, they don't make it part of their identity at all. A lot of companies will have Zoom meetings or they'll have these Zoom events. Well, what if along with people's name and e-mail address, if companies were to add one additional question to say, “Would accommodations would you like for the meeting?” Don't ask a yes or no question, “Are accommodations needed?” Just assume they already do need them. “I know how to invite everybody to the table, not just people that I think should be there answering.“
People could fill that out if they want, or they leave it blank… I mean, say you're a producer and you're looking for a flute player, and you happen to know that the flute player is blind or it's up to the flute player to tell you on their accord if they want. There's nothing wrong with saying, “Hey, do you want anything in any particular format?” You don't even have to acknowledge a disability, because I imagine there are producers and show runners out there that are like, “OK, certain people might want something in a certain format, in a wav doc or an Excel spreadsheet or in plain text, rich text. Right? Same goes for if there's a disability, you don't have to come out and actually say, “Hey, disabled person, would you like Braille?” You just say, “Hey, are there particular formats that you’d like these types of materials?” Then it's up to the person to decide, “Do I wanna disclose? Or is not a big deal?” Just a simple attempt of just saying, “Hey, we're here for you, we're cool, we're fine with doing accommodations because we've done this before.” that might tell the person,”Oh yeah, I don't need anything, because 99 times out of 100, no non-disabled person is gonna have to do anything anyway, because we already figured everything out for ourselves.
That's just it. It's like non-disabled people think when they're run into to a disabled person that they have to help them or not, or we're the ones actually doing them a favor. We live in a world that was not made for us, so more often than not, we're having to dance around and think outside of a box that was designed for something else to be inside, and that is permanent problem solving prowess.
Reach out if you have questions. Hire me as a consultant. I mean, if others consult… the Emmys and Grammys and Oscars and companies ask us to talk about how to be accessible, we're here. We wanna help you out, we're not gonna shake our fist at you. Let's a make the world an open place. Universal accessibility will actually help a lot more people than just people who identify as disabled.
HOW DO YOU KEEP YOURSELF FROM GETTING DEPRESSED ABOUT HEALTH PROBLEMS AND LETTING THAT RUIN YOUR CAREER? NEGATIVE MENTAL HEALTH IS ALMOST ALWAYS PAIRED UP WITH HAVING A DISABILITY BECAUSE MANY PEOPLE REMEMBER THEIR LIVES BEFORE THE HEALTH PROBLEMS KICKED IN. PEOPLE WHO HAVE ALWAYS BEEN DISABLED COMPARE THEMSELVES TO NON-DISABLED PEOPLE. IN MY CASE YEARS AGO, WHENEVER I DIDN’T SEE WELL WITH FLUCTUATING AND ALWAYS UNEXPECTED “TEMPORARY” FOGGY WINDOW TYPE OF BLINDNESS FROM DIABETES THAT WOULDN’T COME OFF AT TIMES, I CRIED A LOT AND FELT I WAS INCAPABLE OF DOING ANYTHING. ALL I DID WAS MOPE AROUND HALFWAY WATCHING MOVIES ON MY FIRST EDITION IPAD, AND I SOMEHOW WAS ABLE TO COMPLETE CHILDREN’S NOVELS ON THAT IPAD BECAUSE WHAT ELSE WAS I GOING TO DO? YOUR BLINDNESS IS A DIFFERENT TYPE AND FULL TIME, SO I HAVE NO IDEA HOW YOU ARE ABLE TO BE SO OPTIMISTIC ON A DAILY BASIS. HOW DO YOU DO IT?
You presume that I’m not. I'm an optimist. Because that's how I see the world. I am a hopeless romantic. I believe in the goodness of people. I believe in the better angels of our nature. I believe in the power of doing good, and I believe in identifying those types of people, and I keep those people in my life and I utterly discard people who are nothing but scars on me.
I have a mental health disability. I have been diagnosed with major depression, but I love my work. Absolutely adore what I do. I love that I get to write music and get paid lots of money for it. I love that I get to not only found Able Artist Foundation and support hundreds of people around the globe, but that I also get to found 1 in 4 Coalition with a bunch of other working directors and Oscar-nominated people, and writers and producers and actors and show runners in Hollywood and affect the highest levels of the industry, and working with them. I love that I got to co-found RAMPD to recording artists and music professionals with disabilities in New York with an amazing pop singer named Lachi. And work with the Grammys to make them accessible and make the music industry more accessible.
I love my work, and I have a mental health disability. So I'm gonna tell you a very private and personal story because if everybody is thinking disability is hard to talk about, mental health disability is the last on that list that anybody wants to touch. So last October 2021, one of my 1 in 4 Coalition fellow founders, she invited me to a film premiere out in LA. I flew out there and went to this gorgeous place, which I had actually been to in years past for the Emmys, and so I even knew the place already being visually impaired. I’m like, “Sweet. I already know where to go to the bathroom. My problems are solved.” And I had this amazing time, I got to meet other co-founders, I got to meet donors. It was magical. I even chilled out and talked to the security guards, 'cause one of them was from New Orleans, and he was a Saints fan and I'm a Vikings fan, and so we were giving each other grief. It was awesome. I had an amazing time.
And then the next morning, I woke up and I was watching the Kansas City Chiefs and the Tennessee Titans. it was like 17 to 10, Chiefs. And I didn't wanna be alive anymore. No reason for it, I just... I didn't wanna be alive. I would rather have been dead, so I'm like, “Well, this sucks. I'm crying in my hotel room after an amazing night with amazing people, watching a sport I love the day after on a sunny LA day, and all I wanna do is be dead.” So I'm like, “Well, I gotta do something about this,” 'cause I've been depressed most of my life, like starting from adolescents maybe that... I'm sure... Well, certainly some of it has to do with disability, but I'm sure a lot of it just doesn't. They can be independent of one another as well, but I'm open about talking about this stuff because I think it's important to share, because the year 2022 Nicole and for those who are listening (on the podcast), that was the hardest year of my life. It was the most successful life affirming, professional affirming year of my life. I was making decent money, I was making change, I was improving people's lives. I was granted access to so much industry stuff, just the awards were coming in. It felt amazing, I was feeling like, I have arrived. And yet, every six weeks, I was going to a psychiatrist and begging them to change my meds because I was paranoid or utterly depressed or numb or filled with a little bit of anger, or whatever it might be. “Well, I'm just not as enthusiastic as I used to be,” or “My floor for emotions is settled, but... Where is my enthusiasm?”
I went through nine different medication changes in 13 months all the while doing my work as a composer andhelping to run three organizations. It’s nuts. But I'm in a position to be able to do that because I don't have any kids, I'm not married. And so what I'm saying is I have the time right now. Like if I were in previous relationships, I don't know if I would have had time to do all this, let alone time for the relationship. But it was now or never for me to make a change 'cause nobody's gonna help me. Nobody is gonna do more work than I am, just like anybody getting into this industry, anybody with a disability, there can be structure around you, which is why things like Able Artist Foundation, 1 in 4 Coalition, RAMPD, and now, Nicole, your podcast, are existing is to put some structure beneath you so that you don't feel so alone like I did..
When I started, I had no one to turn to. Right? It shouldn't have to be like that. So yeah, mental health disabilities are a real thing, and I'm still working through them. Actually, I got a decent handle on them now, but that might change. Six months time, I just might get a little more sad, I'm still gonna go to work 'cause I had a job to do. I'm a professional. I'm just like, “Well, I'm blind. I still gotta work. I'm a professional. This is the world I live in.” But I love the world. I love who. I am. I love the people I meet. I love meeting you. I love people. I'm somebody who loves people, but I'm an introvert who likes people. Well, one person put it really, really nicely, “I just need more time to recharge,” so right now I'm doing great, and then let's throw a little chaos. I have a lot of order in my life, a lot of structure, because that's how I wanna put things, 'cause even crossing the street gives me a little bit of anxiety, but every once in a while, I like a dash of chaos. and I just won't care about the lights or traffic, and I'm just gonna walk across that street. People need a little chaos.
CAN YOU RECOMMEND ANY HELPFUL BOOKS ABOUT DISABILITIES, CAREER HELP, MUSIC OR THINGS THAT PEOPLE FINDING THIS INTERVIEW USEFUL MAY LIKE?
Watch Crip Camp. That's directed, codirected by a friend of mine, Jim Lebrecht, Crip Camp is a documentary. It was nominated for an Oscar in 2021. I would watch Code of the Freaks, and I would read a book by Judy Humann. She is a powerhouse as a tour de force and disability justice. She is somebody I very much looked up to and just understanding a bit, if you're into the disability justice realm, I would read her book, and I'd watch a couple movies like that. CODA is also a decent film. I think I would start there, give you some appreciation and understanding about some different worlds that are out there.
WHERE IN THE WORLD IS THE ABLE ARTIST FOUNDATION ABLE TO ACCEPT MEMBERSHIP?
Able Artist Foundation already exists in 32 countries, which includes New Zealand, United Kingdom, Australia, but we wanna be in as many as possible, so if the government in your country provides benefits like what the US calls supplemental security disability insurance, SSI, SSDI DLA, PIP in the UK. That type of stuff. Then please, we don't already have to be in your country in order to welcome you as a member. One of the ways I got really good at identifying state IDs, passport IDs, and the paperwork from so many countries was people just send them to us. “Oh, so this is what it looks like for somebody from South Korea to apply for benefits,” and then I whip out Google translate and I say, “Please have Korean, please have Korean,” and then it reads it to me, and if it looks right, and I have a matching website that says “here's what the paperwork looks like, here's what to look for,” and the names of stuff… I have websites that are resources for me, so people aren't making paperwork, but nobody's making paperwork... No, no, either people are providing paper work because they are on it, or they don't have the paperwork, and then we just say, “We can’t approve your membership.”
