Body Tune-Up

Songs and sounds that can help amputees walk better, safer, stronger? Frost School of Music researchers are blending music, engineering, and medical disciplines to make sure there's an app for that. By Meredith Camel - UM News CORAL GABLES, Fla. (September 27, 2013) — Could Rocky Balboa have beaten Clubber Lang if his training montage hadn't been set to Survivor's "Eye of the Tiger"? Maybe, but once Rocky III audiences heard those up-tempo rock riffs, they wouldn't dream of exercising without adding the track to their Sony Walkman cassette tapes. Colby Leider, associate professor and director of the Music Engineering Technology program at the Frost School of Music, knows a lot about musical motivation. He is orchestrating a first-of-its-kind collaboration among musicians, biomedical engineers, and physical therapists to create a mobile app that motivates amputees to knock out harmful walking habits. The unlikely marriage of these disciplines began in 2010, when Robert S. Gailey Jr. B.S.Ed.