When Art Adapts: Finding Music in a Broken Body
- Antonia Kenny
- 16 hours ago
- 3 min read
by Antonia @UnremarkableMe
Let’s begin with a scene:You’re home alone, strumming a guitar, lost in the sound of your own thoughts made musical. It’s grounding. Beautiful. Healing.
And then—just when you’ve found something that feels like a song—your body throws a tantrum.
One minute, you're harmonizing with the universe. The next, your fingers feel like they’ve staged a walkout.
Welcome to life with chronic illness.
And yet—somehow—the music doesn’t stop.
When Art Meets Adaptation
Living with conditions like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) or Chiari Malformation isn’t just inconvenient; it’s like your body becoming an unreliable bandmate. You want to play the melody, but your joints, muscles, and nerves have other ideas.
For many of us, music isn’t just a creative outlet—it’s a language. A way to process life when words aren’t enough. When that gets interrupted, the grief is real.
But here’s the twist: creativity doesn’t vanish. It just gets rerouted.
When traditional instruments become difficult—or downright impossible—technology steps in with an elegant little wink and says, "Shall we try something new?"
Enter the Digital Era of Music-Making
Back in 2004, Apple released GarageBand, and everything changed. Suddenly, music production wasn’t locked behind expensive studio doors—it was available to anyone with a Mac and a dream.
You could build an entire track in your bedroom, still in your dressing gown, surrounded by cold tea and questionable life choices.
Tools like GarageBand were a revelation for people with physical limitations. They let you compose without having to physically perform. You could still hear the music you carried inside you—even if your body wasn’t playing along.
And now, we’re standing at another frontier: the age of artificial intelligence.
Enter Riffusion, an AI platform that turns text—your lyrics—into music. Type a prompt—say, "haunting violin under stormy skies"—and it generates an original track you can edit and build on.
It’s surreal. It’s oddly poetic. And for many people with chronic illness, it can be a lifeline.
You don’t need physical stamina or fine motor skills—you just need imagination.(Disclaimer: it’s wildly addictive!)
From Grief to Grit: Reimagining the Creative Journey
After the music changed, I didn’t stop creating—I adapted.
I turned my words and emotions into songs. They weren’t always clean or polished. Sometimes they were scribbled out at 3 a.m., between flare-ups and fatigue.
But they were honest. They sounded like me.
More importantly, they became a way to give back.I'm hoping to raise funds, with all proceeds going to organizations like The Ehlers-Danlos Society and Conquer Chiari.
These aren’t just charities. They’re communities. Support networks. Hubs of hope for people trying to find footing in bodies that don’t always cooperate.
Stay tuned for new releases, coming soon to UnremarkableMe.com!
The Music Didn’t Die—It Evolved
Living with chronic illness demands creativity on every level. You don’t get the luxury of doing things “the usual way.”
So you invent new ones. You pivot. You improvise.
Eventually, you realize that limitations don’t kill your art—they change its shape.
Whether it’s through AI tools, pre-made loops, or softly humming into a voice memo while lying flat on the sofa—creativity finds a way out.
The act of creating becomes not just therapeutic, but radical. A quiet rebellion: I’m still here. And I still have something to say.
In a world that glorifies the extraordinary, it takes real courage to be Unremarkable—to survive. To stand back up. To find sparks of light when the night feels endless.
Final Verse: A Little Bit Louder Now
Music doesn’t need a perfect body—it only needs a willing heart.
And if you have one of those, whether you're using a guitar, a digital trackpad, or a few lines of AI-generated code, you're still a musician. Still a creator. Still part of the song.
I created this song for everyone who has ever felt Unremarkable—to remind you that there is still steel-light in the dark, and that being Unremarkable is nothing short of remarkable.
This is for all of us—the beautifully Unremarkable.
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