How can new technology help you to play a new musical instrument? The E-Sense research programme is experimenting with novel augmentation devices to explore sensory, bodily and cognitive extension. In this interdisciplinary research, philosophy and art combine with various flavours of computing: ubiquitous; wearable; and physical. We take a look at how E-Sense's speculative philosophical research experiments, built on the 1960's work of Paul Bach-Y-Rita's minimal tactile vision sensory substitution (TVSS) systems, are now helping progress research in other very practical applications.