Audiovisual Perception of Musical Interactions in Mixed Pieces with the Karlax

Digital Musical Instruments (DMIs) add new layers of complexity to musical performance by physically embodying electronic sound control. Despite growing studies on the design of DMIs, little research has investigated how DMIs are understood in real musical contexts by listeners. Inspired by the interactive potential between DMIs and acoustic instruments, this study investigates the perception of interactions between Karlax (a model DMI) and acoustic instruments. Six duo pieces were composed by student composers for Karlax and various acoustic instruments. An eight-category taxonomy of interaction types was proposed by the authors based on the pieces. Thirty-six musicians participated in a free-sorting task, grouping 32 selected excerpts according to perceived interaction types and providing descriptions for each group. Hierarchical cluster analysis revealed that some predefined interaction categories were successfully identified by participants. Moreover, “dialogue-like” interactions were distinguished from “non-dialogue” interactions. The results also suggest a perceptual framework of musical interaction with three musically relevant dimensions: temporality, synergy, and prominence. This study highlights the embodied potential of DMIs to function as fully interactive partners alongside acoustic instruments. The results offer empirical evidence of how complex musical interactions involving novel digital instruments might be mentally organized by listeners.