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NIME Identity from the Performer’s Perspective
Fabio Morreale
Centre for Digital Music
Queen Mary University of
London, UK
f.morreale@qmul.ac.uk
Andrew P. McPherson
Centre for Digital Music
Queen Mary University of
London, UK
a.mcpherson@qmul.ac.uk
Marcelo M. Wanderley
Schulich School of Music
McGill University
Montreal, Canada
marcelo.wanderley@mcgill.ca
ABSTRACT
The term ‘NIME’ - New Interfaces for Musical Expression
- has come to signify both technical and cultural charac-
teristics. Not all new musical instruments are NIMEs, and
not all NIMEs are defined as such for the sole ephemeral
condition of being new. So, what are the typical charac-
teristics of NIMEs and what are their roles in performers’
practice? Is there a typical NIME repertoire? This paper
aims to address these questions with a bottom up approach.
We reflect on the answers of 78 NIME performers to an on-
line questionnaire discussing their performance experience
with NIMEs. The results of our investigation explore the
role of NIMEs in the performers’ practice and identify the
values that are common among performers. We find that
most NIMEs are viewed as exploratory tools created by and
for performers, and that they are constantly in development
and almost in no occasions in a finite state. The findings of
our survey also reflect upon virtuosity with NIMEs, whose
peculiar performance practice results in learning trajecto-
ries that often do not lead to the development of virtuosity
as it is commonly understood in traditional performance.
Author Keywords
Artistic practice, virtuosity, DMI performance
CCS Concepts
•Applied computing →Sound and music computing;
Performing arts;
1. INTRODUCTION
The NIME community describes itself as a hub that allows
“researchers and musicians from all over the world to share
their knowledge and late-breaking work on new musical in-
terface design”
1. This description identifies an academic
and an artistic side, which have always been in balance
throughout the various editions of NIME, the artistic pro-
ductions being as prolific as the academic discussion. How-
ever, it seems that the identities of the two sides might not
have grown at the same rate.
On the academic side, a large number of self-reflective
papers contributed to the maturity of NIME as a research
1http://www.nime.org
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0). Copyright
remains with the author(s).
NIME’18, June 3-6, 2018, Blacksburg, Virginia, USA.
community [4, 5, 9, 10, 23, 30, 33]. One can arguably be
able to identify a NIME paper as such. On the artistic side,
however, identifying the characteristics of NIME practice
seems more challenging. Fundamental questions related to
the very nature of NIME practice are still unanswered. How
are performers’ artistic practices supported by the NIMEs
they play? What are the common elements among NIMEs?
Such discussions have been a major theme almost since
the beginning of the conference. The call for papers of
NIME 2003 invited authors to submit a category of papers
(“usability reports”) discussing pros and cons of performing
with a certain interface as compared to existing options.
However, this category of papers was dropped from succes-
sive editions of the conference and such discussions have
only continued as conversations among members, at Steer-
ing Committee meetings, and at annual town hall meetings
that conclude the conference [22].
The objective of this paper is to open a window into
the practices and values of NIME performers, doing so in
the most inclusive way possible with the constraints of au-
thored paper format. Answering Jensenius’s call for action
to survey members of our community about their sense of
NIME [22], we collected comments about their experience
with NIME performance practice directly from 78 musicians
with an online survey. The answers were analysed with a
thematic analysis to determine how the technical tool suits
the artistic aims of the performer. We propose and discuss
possible commonalities and differences in NIME practice.
2. RELATED WORK
NIME researchers have been producing a large amount of
self-reflective work discussing the characteristics of the com-
munity [30], its critical areas of interest [9], its common re-
search approaches [10], and the evaluation strategies used
(or not used) [4]. Several papers have focused on the NIMEs
themselves, often with a focus on technical aspects such as
mapping strategies [20], performance gestures [21], inter-
action modalities [20], player-instrument relationships [24]
and design subtleties [2]. Notably, discussions about the
characteristics of new digital musical instruments pre-date
the first NIME conference/workshop [43].
If technical aspects of NIMEs have been relatively well
defined, the same does not hold true for the artistic side,
whose study has received a less systematic approach. A
handful of studies have identified characteristics that are
typical in DMI practice. Magnusson and Hurtado suggested
that DMIs are usually created for specific needs, as opposed
to traditional instruments that require players to “mould”
oneself to it [28]. Investigating technical issues is the pecu-
liarity that Torre and Andersen attributed to NIMEs [39].
Many NIMEs never quit an initial exploratory phase, which
would traditionally be followed by a second phase in which
the designer settles on a specific solution and by a third
phase that allows for customisation. Ending at the experi-
mental phase is the main reason that the authors attribute
to the short lifecycle of NIMEs, an aspect that has been
previously recognised [24] and documented [33].
The limited lifecycle of the instrument has an influence
on the performance practice, in particular for its learnabil-
ity and potential for virtuosity. Learning to play a DMI
significantly differs from that known from traditional in-
struments due to the non-standardisation of learning pro-
cedures and the common lack of visual or haptic feedback
[18]. Also, DMIs do not always have straightforward, pre-
dictable responses, which necessitates a different type of
engagement. Virtuosity in music performance, it has been
argued, comes from the Romantic-era ideals of music per-
formance and might not apply to more recent musical activ-
ities like sequencers, live-coding, and algorithmic music [29].
Also, the artistic aims of DMIs performers sometimes dif-
fer from those of classical performers: they can be achieved
with a wide range of processes that often involve integrating
physical objects, electronic circuits and computers [27].
A repository of values of NIME performers can be found
in interviews and personal writings by individual well-known
artists, a number of which were included in two recent an-
thologies [6, 23] and include retrospective comments about
experiences with instrument design and performance. For
instance, Marije Baalman elaborated upon her experience
as DMI artist and designer. She commented that her experi-
ence with the design and perormance of Gewording blurred
the boundaries between composition, design, and perfor-
mance. The double role of designer-performer had implica-
tions on her artistic practice, in that the instrument evolved
and changed for a long time before settling in. A similar
comment was offered by Michel Waisvisz. He had to spend
a considerable amount of time to make The Hands playable.
Eventually, he stopped the building and development pro-
cess and learn to play the instrument as it was [39, 41]. An
similar story was narrated by Jeff Snyder about the evolu-
tion of the Birl, which had undergone several drastic design
changes to the extent that the latest versions are completely
unrelated to the original design [34].
This brief review reaffirms that the NIME community has
been interested in exploring its own individuality since its
formation. However, NIME artistic practice has not been
systematically analysed outside of the writings of a few in-
fluential individuals. The next section presents our con-
tribution towards offering a clearer sense of whether these
views are broadly held. Believing that a conversation about
NIME identity - intended as the set of commonalities among
NIME instruments and NIME practice - should be initiated
in an inclusive way, we report and compare reflections from
NIME performers about their own experiences.
3. METHODOLOGY
We conducted an online survey to offer a comprehensive
view that takes into account as many recent NIME per-
formers as possible. This research method has been previ-
ously adopted by NIME researchers [28, 33, 37] as a way to
directly collect insights from members of the community.
3.1 Performer selection
To be as methodical as possible in the selection process,
we started off identifying the musicians that played at the
NIME conference. We limited the selection to those that
performed at the last five editions of the conference, from
2013 to 2017. We avoided digging further into the past as
people’s recollections about specific performances practices
may start to become unreliable. In order to identify the in-
dividuals that performed at NIME we consulted the concert
programmes that are available online. We aimed to contact
only those whose role in the concert was NIME player (as
opposed to, for instance, visual artists and composers that
were not also performers). However, in most cases, the pro-
grammes do not specify the performers’ role in the concert.
Thus, we contacted all performers and we dedicated the first
question of the survey to filter the respondents (see Section
3.2). The questionnaire was sent to 171 performers (40F);
102 answered (24F, 59.6% response rate).
We also prepared a second questionnaire to be sent to
well-known performers of NIMEs that, for a host of reasons,
did not play at the editions of the conference under scrutiny
but whose opinion take on the topic would be valuable. An
initial list of performers was prepared by the authors of this
paper, who can count on a solid network of connections
among NIME (and pre-NIME) performers. We limited the
potential biases derived by the boundaries of our own net-
work by allowing each respondent to nominate other NIME
performers they knew. After the pertinence of the sugges-
tions was checked, we sent the survey to the nominees (all
19 nominees, 4F, were accepted). This second question-
naire reached 45 performers (6F); 26 answered (3F, 57.7%
response rate). To disambiguate between the two groups of
respondents we next refer to those that performed at the
NIME conference as Group A, the invited and nominated
performers as Group B.
3.2 Questionnaire
Both questionnaires included the same 24 open and closed
questions querying different aspects of practices with the
instrument they performed at the conference (Group A), or
with a NIME instrument of their choice (Group B). The
questionnaire for Group A started with a question about
their role in the performance. Following the objectives of
this survey, only those who described their role as NIME
player or software instrument player were routed to the
successive 24 questions. From this survey we collected 52
complete responses (the remaining 50 respondents had a
different role; Table 1). From the invited performers we
collected 26 responses, for a total of 78 responses2.
Table 1: Role in NIME performances with number
of responses and relative percentage (Group A).
NIME player 46 45%
Composer 24 23.5%
Live coder / live sound processor 10 10.2%
Traditional musical instrument player 9 8.8%
Software instrument player 6 5.8%
Visual artist 5 4.9%
Dancer 2 1.9%
Total 102
3.3 Data analysis
The data discussed in the next section integrates the analy-
sis of the answers to the open questions about respondents’
performance practice with quantitative answers to some sur-
vey questions. A thematic analysis was performed on this
data using a deductive approach. The most interesting com-
ments related to our research aims were identified and as-
sociated with a code. Codes were iteratively analysed and
clustered into themes considering findings and discussions
from related work. Each theme, which are discussed in the
next section, takes into account one possible commonality
of artistic practice among NIME performers.
2The questionnaires and the results are available at
http://instrumentslab.org/data/NIME18Survey.xlsx
4. COMMONALITIES IN NIME PRACTICE
By definition, the newness of the instrument should be the
most obvious unifying element among NIME performances.
Our analysis only partially supported this view. One sur-
vey question asked performers to indicate how long they
have been playing the instrument under discussion. A total
of 28 performers from Group A (37%) reported that they
have been playing the instrument for more than 5 years,
13 of which indicated that have played it for more than 10
years. This result suggests that performances at the NIME
conference often involve instruments that are not so new, at
least by technological standards of the word. Similar results
were collected from Group B: 20% of the performers have
been playing the instrument for more than 5 years. NIMEs
seem to continue to serve performer’s artistic practices even
when the instrument is no longer new. This result calls for
reflecting on how the community defines “new”.
4.1 Functions and reasons for existence
Related studies suggest that DMIs are usually created to
satisfy specific needs [28]; answers to our survey suggested
that some of these needs are common among NIME musi-
cians, whereas others are unique.
4.1.1 An exploratory instrument
One question of the survey asked performers their motiva-
tions to play that specific instrument. The answers of 9
performers similarly discussed that their NIME is an ex-
ploratory tool to extend their performance practice. For
example, Paul Stapleton reported that his Ambiguous De-
vices, which was created and performed in collaboration
with Tom Davis, allowed him to explore timbral material
and different forms of collaborative improvisation. Another
example is Luca Turchet, whose urge to design the Smart
Mandolin [40] was motivated by his artistic needs to explore
novel pathways for composition.
Rather than expanding one’s own artistic practice, the
answers of 10 performers to the same question suggested
that their instruments are designed to connect their prac-
tice to other practices. Rikard Lindell’s Critical Digitalism
[26] suits his artistic aims as it allows him to “explore the
connection between the acoustic, analogy and digital reflec-
tion”. Similarly, when elaborating on his motivations to
play the Feedback Cello [16], Chris Kiefer reported that “it
is a mix of acoustic, electric and digital: it’s fascinating and
engaging to explore a mixture of these worlds”. Four other
instruments were intended to connect music with other ar-
eas that are not strictly musical, i.e. theatre (Marjie Baal-
man and Dianne Verdonk), dance (Alex Nowitz), and gam-
ing (Spencer Salazar).
4.1.2 Extending control, augmenting expression
Eleven performers attributed the role of their NIME to aug-
menting the expressive potential of existing instruments.
This is the case, for instance, of Bernt Isak Wærstad, whose
COSMO Collective’s goal is to “extend the possibilities of
the electric guitar, while maintaining the level of musical ex-
pression”, and of Ian Hattwick’s and colleagues’ Unsounding
Objects [19], which was created to “use my current per-
cussion practice of extended techniques” (Zachary Hale).
Similarly, the Living Strings [13] is used in Palle Dahlst-
edt’s practice to“take advantage of piano playing technique,
while offering enhanced timbral qualities and control. As
such it is very rewarding for a pianist to play”. A similar
example with a NIME that is no longer quite new, is pro-
posed by Mark Goldstein, who chose to play Don Buchla’s
Marimba Lumina because it enables extended gestural con-
trol based upon standard mallet technique.
The comments of 8 respondents resonated with Alper-
son’s take on new musical instruments as tools to blur the
boundaries between the body and the instrument [1]. When
talking about the aim of his Strophonion in his practice,
Nowitz explained: “It is a gesture-controlled live electronic
instrument that allows me, without any constraints to the
body movements, to extend my vocal performance”. A sim-
ilar comment is offered by Myriam Bleau, who considers
the Soft Revolvers a tool that enables physicality in elec-
tronic music performance, and by Atau Tanaka who de-
scribed BioMuse [36] as an instrument that offers an inti-
mate level of corporeal interaction that “helps to create in
the performer a unique awareness of his own body”.
4.1.3 Redistribution of agencies
Musical agencies are defined as “the capacities of human
beings or technologies to generate music” [8]. Recent theo-
ries [7, 8] proposed considering musical creativity as a dis-
tributed network of musical agencies. This concept was
originally proposed in the context of algorithmic music: dis-
tributing agencies to non-human performers can spark new
forms of creativity [8, 32]. Comments from our survey sug-
gest that the artistic practice of 7 performers can be anal-
ysed under the lens of musical agencies redistribution.
Stapleton built Ambiguous Devices to research distributed
agency in improvisation ecosystems. Sharing control with
the instrument was also mentioned by Kiefer (“I am inter-
ested in exploring shared control with the instrument - the
player is a shaper of continuous loop rather than directly
controlling the instrument”) and Dahlstedt (“Due to its un-
predictability, the system works almost as a co-musician,
triggering unique interaction patterns”).
The augmented version of an instrument can modify the
musical agencies of the performers and, as a consequence,
the roles in an ensemble of the non-augmented counterpart.
This idea is explained by Hans Leeuw when describing his
experience with the Electrumpet [25]: “its best aspect is
to have the trumpet to have different role in music than
purely being the melodic player; now I can more easily take
on roles that are typical of other instruments like piano,
bass or drums”.
Musical agencies can also be distributed to the audience
(see [38] for a overview). In our survey we collected one
comment discussing this point: “Notesaaz shares a part of
the musician’s thought process with the audience. As a
musician it may put me in a somewhat vulnerable position,
but can as well engage the audience in an active perception”
(Erfan Abdi Dezfouli discussing his Notesaaz [15]).
4.1.4 “Uncommon” reasons for existence
Several performers identified reasons for existence of their
instrument that were not shared with anyone else’s. This
result is particularly important for our investigation: NIME
also includes diverse performance practices that do not share
much with other NIME performers. For instance, Stephan
Moore and Scott Smallwood designed Losperus to reflect
on their fascinations with Marcel Duchamp’s ready mades
and the sonic potentials of everyday objects. Other unique
functions of NIMEs are that of Ryan Jordan, whose Pos-
session Trance is an “attempt to create an altered state of
consciousness - to create multi-sensory hallucinations” and
Tijs Ham’s States, which “investigates balance and tipping
points in chaotic systems”.
4.2 Designer = composer = performer
A total of 78% (N=61) of the performers designed the NIME
that they play. The percentage of performers that answered
that they have been involved in the process of instrument
making is even more striking: 97% answered that they have
been; only 2 performers (out of 78) have not. On a related
note, the answers of 8 performers to open questions of the
survey indicated that composition can also be strictly con-
nected to performing and designing an instrument.
The analysis of the survey distinguished between two dif-
ferent ways to consider the equivalence designer = per-
former = composer.
In one case, performers/composers had to develop their
own instrument because no existing instruments met the
needs of their artistic practice. This is the case of Mercedes
Blasco, who designed her instruments following a “frustra-
tion derived from commercially available hardware”and Nicole
Carroll, whose instrument “addresses a need that no other
mass-produced instrument/controller does”. Similarly, Jor-
dan Rudess co-designed GeoShred because he needed “to
seamlessly shift in and out of fretless or chromatic play”.
In the other case, the roles are inherently fused together
such that it wouldn’t be possible for them to be separated.
Bleau’s Soft Revolvers, for instance, is “conceptually linked
to the whole performance and the music that is played, the
instrument is part of the work of art”. When describing
his Auditorium, Rui Penha said: “It was an instrument /
composition. I will not use it for any other composition nor
could I do the composition with a different instrument”.
Similarly, Miguel Ortiz explained that his instrument was
designed specifically for the piece I’ll Be On The Water.
These comments reflect the ongoing debate within the
NIME community of whether the instrument follows the
artistic goals, or vice versa. In 2001 Cook suggested design-
ing musical pieces and then considering the controller that
might make them possible [12]. A counterargument was
offered by Wanderley in his expert commentary on Cook’s
updated paper on the NIME Reader [42]: there exist instru-
ments like the T-Stick and Gyrotyre that were produced
without a musical piece in mind but subsequently were ex-
tensively used musically [17].
The answers to our survey suggest that the overlap be-
tween the roles results in a tension, expressed by Abdi Dez-
fouli as an unceasing “dilemma between changing the de-
sign of the instrument or learning its current features”. In
Leeuw’s words, bringing balance in practising and design-
ing is the most challenging aspect of learning to play his
Electrumpet. Blasco further reflected on this topic, stating:
“I could keep on working with it forever, since I am also
the designer so it is a constant process of re-tweaking and
advancing”. Covering the two roles is the most challenging
aspect: “It is hard to just be the performer”.
4.3 Background and repertoire
It is not uncommon for performers of traditional musical in-
struments to play a variety of instruments that are organolog-
ically similar. For instance, violin players can often play vi-
olas, and vice-versa. We searched for the existence of com-
mon trajectories in the background and musical expertise
of NIME performers.
One question asked whether performers play or have played
more than one NIME; 63% (N=49) have. We then asked
about their background with traditional musical instruments.
The great majority (91%, N=71) do play traditional instru-
ments, with guitar (45%, N=35) and piano (42%, N=33)
being the most popular; one out of four players play typ-
ical orchestral instruments (24%, N=19). Seven respon-
dents mentioned instruments that can arguably be consid-
ered NIMEs (e.g. laptop, synthesizer, electronics, Contin-
uum) as traditional instruments that they play. The Roli
Seaboard was mentioned by 3 performers when asked to list
the NIMEs they play but it also appeared in the list of the
traditional instruments that one respondent plays, indicat-
ing lack of agreement among performers when labelling a
musical instrument as a ‘NIME’.
The repertoire played with the instruments provides an-
other indicator of practices that are common among NIME
performers. Performers were asked to indicate the genres
they typically perform with their NIME (multiple choices
available). The answers to this question are shown in Fig-
ure 1. Experimental pieces were selected by 4 out of 5 per-
formers and electronic and noise were also selected by a
large number of respondents. Notably, 8 perfomers (10%)
answered other, specifying genres that are not typically as-
sociated with NIME like hip-hop, and Indian music.
Figure 1: Distribution of the genres played with
NIMEs (multiple answers allowed).
4.4 Learnability and virtuosity
A section of the questionnaire enquired about the devel-
opment of virtuosity with NIMEs. We asked to indicate
on a 5-point likert scale their level of virtuosity with their
instrument. The result, shown in Figure 2, indicates that
most performers are confident considering themselves virtu-
osi with the instrument. Surprisingly, 22 performers (28%)
self-reported their level of virtuosity with an instrument
that play or have played in public as 3 or 4 (1: virtuoso; 5:
beginner). Answers to another question partially contradict
this result: when asked to indicate the number of musicians
that can be considered virtuoso with the instrument, 76%
(N=60) answered that no virtuosi exist (so far).
Figure 2: Answers to the question: How would you
consider your level of proficiency with the instru-
ment? 1: Virtuso - 5: Beginner
4.4.1 Virtuosity is not always an aim
One question asked whether respondents considered it pos-
sible to develop virtuosity with the instrument, and, if so,
how long it might take. Most of the performers that an-
swered this question believed it is possible, taking from a
few months to a few years. By contrast, 8 performers be-
lieved that virtuosity does not apply to their practice: “It
is not clear to me what virtuosity would look like with this
instrument” (Tom Mudd). Four respondents simply do not
value the development of virtuoso performance in their prac-
tice: “It is not the goal of practice with this instrument. To
think about virtuosity would be to miss the point of what
the instrument has to offer” (Moore).
For other performers the longevity of their instrument
is purposely limited and tied to certain musical styles, thus
limiting the possibility to develop virtuosity, which can arise
only from extensive training: “That particular instrument
was designed specifically for the piece performed. It does
not have much space to develop a virtuoso performance
practice. The software can be changed to provide a larger
performance palette using the same physical interface, but
I would consider it a different instrument.” (Ortiz).
As opposed to traditional musical instruments, which have
often been subject to centuries-long process of redesign and
refinement, the infancy of NIMEs results in a limited possi-
bility to develop virtuosity. This is the case of Mark Ijzer-
man, who believes that it is probably not possible to develop
virtuosity with his Augcordion, which was “a technical pro-
totype mainly meant to see what certain sensors could do.
As such, it was not developed thoroughly and the controls
and sensors are too weird to be able to develop virtuosity”.
The tension in the combined performer-designer role has
implications for NIME virtuosity. When the performer is
also the designer, virtuosity is not only a matter of extended
practice but also of instrument redesign: “I am busy with
developing advanced performance practice” (Leeuw).
4.4.2 Unpredictability
In traditional music performance, a necessary condition for
being a virtuoso is the capability to have predictable con-
trol over the instrument. A virtuoso can quickly recall in-
ternalised mechanisms acquired through extensive training
that allows her to anticipate the actions and detect errors
before the sensorial feedback arrives [44]. A predictable re-
sponse from the instrument does not seem to be a condition
that NIME musicians necessarily look for in their practice.
Unpredictabilities are sometimes purposely programmed in
NIMEs because they keep the instrument interesting [11]
and help improvisations, which“tend to become predictable
if nothing surprising happened” [35].
Thirteen respondents of our survey supported this view:
“One can develop advanced performance skills with the in-
strument, but not in the virtuoso sense of highly specified
and predictable control” (Stapleton). Alberto De Campo
explained that the impossibility to precisely predict the be-
haviour of his Trio Brachiale is necessary in his artistic prac-
tice: “I enjoy being surprised by the difference between my
imagined expectation and what really happens”.
Exploiting unpredictability for creative inspiration is not
limited to NIME. Jonathan de Souza [14, p. 88] describes
how jazz guitarist Kurt Rosenwinkel retunes his guitars in
unfamiliar patterns, a practice he describes as “voluntary
self-sabotage”.
4.4.3 Unique learning trajectories
The peculiar overlapping roles of a NIME performer im-
pacts the learning experience, as discussed by 6 performers.
Donna Hewitt expressed her scepticism for developing profi-
ciency with her Doppelganger: “it is possible to become pro-
ficient, but the performance and composition are entwined”.
Other performers have similar opinions: “the performance
requires some skill but is more dependent on appropriate
composition and sound design” (Salazar); “Proficiency de-
pends on the type of synthesis and mapping, which can be
freely modified on my instrument” (Ivan Franco).
Insook Choi backed this view: “Learning is mainly about
executing the compositional plans”. But she specifies: ”com-
position provides a learning architecture with respect to a
performance system”. Tobias Grosshauser also explained
that the challenging part was learning how technology re-
acted. These comments suggest that musical agencies re-
distribution not only impacts artistic practice but also the
learning process, particularly in case of unpredictable sys-
tems: “As a feedback instrument it is extremely non-linear
and sensitive to external conditions, so sometimes it’s diffi-
cult to exactly repeat something” (Kiefer).
The lack of playing community is be another barrier in
the learning process, as elaborated by 9 performers: “No-
body is virtuoso with this because the instrument is new
and unique” (Kiefer). Martin Marier has a similar take on
the issue: “The training of virtuosos could only come af-
ter the creation of a repertoire and of a culture around the
instrument”.
5. FINAL REMARKS
We talked to NIME performers to identify their values and
the way their instruments embody those values. Some of
them had been previously identified by other authors when
reporting their experiences with NIME development and
performance [3, 13, 34, 41]. This article proposes that these
values, rather than being peculiar of individual musicians’
practices, are often common among several other artists,
contributing determining some of the greatest identifying
factors of NIME performances. However, the extent to
which these values are idiosyncratic traits of NIME per-
formances, as opposed to more general DMIs, is left for
future work (a comparisons between instruments presented
at NIME versus instruments presented at other HCI confer-
ences and on crowdfunding platforms is discussed at [31]).
We provided evidence to the relative diversity among per-
formers, confirming the feeling that a NIME performer is
also somebody that strives to elude definitions and cate-
gorisations. A wide range of repertoires exists within NIME,
and NIMEs have a variety of roles in the performers’ prac-
tice and a variety of learning trajectories. Commonalities
among NIME practices can be highlighted, but they remain
highly personal. Trying to associate them with categories
risks missing the point of their essence.
It can be identified a difference between the scientific and
artistic side: technology researchers might seek to find com-
mon directions, while artists might seek individuality. The
body of NIME performance practice reflects this productive
tension, where instruments are designed with shared tools
and methodologies and they cross-evolve by practitioners
sharing ideas via papers and technical reports, while artistic
practice seeks an individual identity as well as collectively
belonging to the NIME community.
This paper did not aim to offer indisputable arguments
about the identity of NIME performance practice. Rather,
it initiated a conversation, which we encourage to be contin-
ued in a participatory way. We believe that bringing back
structured conversations in the form of paper presentations,
panels, and workshops could help define NIME artistic prac-
tice. Members of the community could join this conversa-
tion by continuing making art with NIMEs and reporting
the stories of their creations and their performance expe-
riences. Reviving the call for papers of NIME 2003, these
reports could include comparisons about the different possi-
bilities that the instrument enables in one’s artists practice
compared to existing solutions.
6. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We are grateful to all the performers that participated to
this study and to the reviewers for their excellent job at
suggesting ways to improve our work. This research was
supported by EPSRC under grant EP/N005112/1.
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