Cultural Inertia and Technical Concretisation: A Systematic Review of Keyboard Interfaces at NIME

Yiming Li, I-Chieh Wei, and Fabio Morreale

Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression

Abstract

Keyboard interfaces occupy a dual position in music technology as both a historical standard and a site for experimental augmentation. Although the NIME community is reflexive, no systematic review has yet investigated how the keyboard interface has evolved within this research context. We address this issue with an inductive thematic analysis of 104 publications from 2001 to 2025. Grounding our findings in Simondon’s concept of concretisation and postphenomenology, we identify a strong cultural inertia associated with Western music theory. Results show that innovation is predominantly concentrated on key-based continuous control, focusing on the micro-gestures of the fingertip. This review reveals that despite the community’s increasing global diversity, keyboard design philosophies based on non-Western music theories remain largely overlooked. To address this, we suggest leveraging interface multistability to support non-Western musical frameworks. Furthermore, we encourage the invention of novel keyboard interfaces grounded in non-Western music theories.

Citation

Yiming Li, I-Chieh Wei, and Fabio Morreale. 2026. Cultural Inertia and Technical Concretisation: A Systematic Review of Keyboard Interfaces at NIME. Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.20784076 [PDF]

BibTeX Entry

@inproceedings{nime2026_17,
 abstract = {Keyboard interfaces occupy a dual position in music technology as both a historical standard and a site for experimental augmentation. Although the NIME community is reflexive, no systematic review has yet investigated how the keyboard interface has evolved within this research context. We address this issue with an inductive thematic analysis of 104 publications from 2001 to 2025. Grounding our findings in Simondon’s concept of concretisation and postphenomenology, we identify a strong cultural inertia associated with Western music theory. Results show that innovation is predominantly concentrated on key-based continuous control, focusing on the micro-gestures of the fingertip. This review reveals that despite the community’s increasing global diversity, keyboard design philosophies based on non-Western music theories remain largely overlooked. To address this, we suggest leveraging interface multistability to support non-Western musical frameworks. Furthermore, we encourage the invention of novel keyboard interfaces grounded in non-Western music theories.},
 address = {London, United Kingdom},
 articleno = {17},
 author = {Yiming Li and I-Chieh Wei and Fabio Morreale},
 booktitle = {Proceedings of the International Conference on New Interfaces for Musical Expression},
 doi = {10.5281/zenodo.20784076},
 editor = {Benedict Gaster and João Tragtenberg and Anna Xambó and Tom Mitchell},
 issn = {2220-4806},
 month = {June},
 note = {},
 numpages = {14},
 pages = {134--147},
 title = {Cultural Inertia and Technical Concretisation: A Systematic Review of Keyboard Interfaces at NIME},
 track = {Paper},
 url = {http://nime.org/proceedings/2026/nime2026_17.pdf},
 year = {2026}
}