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

Yiming Li; I-Chieh Wei; Fabio Morreale

Cultural Inertia and Technical Concretisation: A Systematic Review of Keyboard Interfaces at NIME
Image credit: Yiming Li; I-Chieh Wei; Fabio Morreale

Abstract:

Keyboard interfaces occupy a dual position in music technol- ogy 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 inter- face 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 con- cept 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 en- courage the invention of novel keyboard interfaces grounded in non-Western music theories.