JUDY WOODRUFF: And now to the
story of a song called "Spaces."

It's one made by and for
the disabled community.

While the song highlights
a disease known as
spinal muscular atrophy,

or SMA, it also celebrates
the talent of the much
broader disability community.

It's part of our arts and
culture series, Canvas.

JAMES IAN, Singer & Songwriter,
"Spaces": I have spinal muscular
atrophy Type 3. It pretty

much affects all of the
physical aspects of my life.
Spinal muscular atrophy is a

neurodegenerative muscular
condition that affects
your muscles and weakens
your muscles over time.

My name is James Ian. I'm the
singer of the song "Spaces."

I also wrote "Spaces"
along with Barry Weeks, Tom
Rowland, and other members
of the SMA community.

"Spaces" is a song created
by the SMA community

for people with disabilities,
for the SMA community.

I started out playing piano,
always have been a singer.

And then I just started
picking up other
instruments as I got older.

SMA does make playing
instruments more
difficult due to fatigue,

so I have to be smart
about how to conserve
energy and work with SMA.

DOMINICK EVANS: I was interested
in the concept of spaces.

You, James, came
up with that one?

JAMES IAN: Yes, the
thought for that one...

Having that brainstorm with
the SMA community and having
our voices really be heard and

be the ones that created this
thing, I don't think that's
been done before. We often don't

think that we're seen or
considered or heard, and
people kind of just look
over us or look past us.

And so we really, really
wanted to be seen. And so

"Spaces" is about that.
It's like, we have
disabilities, we have SMA,

but we're out here in the
world, like, doing really,
really cool, amazing things.

I teared up when I saw those
photos come to life, because
they were just so spectacular.

Dominick Evans was the
director and came up with the
concept for the music video.

Dominick was directing from home
via iPad. And then Zach Merck
was the director on the ground.

It was really cool that, even
though Dominick couldn't be
there in the room with us,

that everyone made sure
Dominick was like the guiding
voice and very, very included.

I hope this also shows that
you can do projects with
people with disabilities from

inception to finalized
product. They can create it,

they can write it, they can sing
it, they can act in it, they can
model in the project, and they

can be amazing projects that
the whole world will love and
can see and want to emulate.

JUDY WOODRUFF: I

really love that. What a
wonderful piece of music.

And the song, sponsored
by pharmaceutical
company Genentech, was

just released and can
be found online at
smamyway.com and on YouTube.