Tom Benjamin, PhD is an adjunct university lecturer in Adelaide, South Australia. He was formerly Senior Researcher in learning Innovation for the New South Wales Department of Education and Communities. He is an Emeritus member of the International Musicology Society. In 2016 he was awarded an Australian Innovation Patent for a simplified method of music-learning. He had an earlier long clinical career in teaching hospitals in Sydney and has continued a non-profit organisation, the Medical Consumers Association, founded by his former colleagues at the University of New South Wales. The MCA has formed a community participation group, the Play by Ear Association.