I recently read a paper presented at NIME 2024 called “Juggling for Beginners: Embracing and Fabricating Failure as Musical Expression”. It immediately caught my attention, not only because of its playful title, but because it challenges some of the deepest assumptions we have about performance, skill, and music-making.
What the paper is about
The paper I read introduces a musical interface that is unlike anything I’ve seen before. Instead of rewarding precision or control, it creates music from failure. The authors designed a system that turns unsuccessful attempts at juggling into expressive sound.
The concept is as charming as it is deep. A person begins juggling (or trying to), and the system tracks their movements. Instead of focusing on how well the person juggles, the software listens for the irregularities—the clumsy throws, the missed catches, the awkward flailing—and those gestures are what drive the music. The worse you are at juggling, the more interesting and expressive the sound becomes.
This flips the usual narrative of performance entirely on its head. Instead of needing years of practice to produce something worth hearing, this instrument invites beginners to make music from the get-go. It doesn’t ask you to be good—it asks you to be honest and in motion.
A beautiful rethinking of performance
What I found most powerful in this work is the idea of embracing mistakes not just as accidents, but as an essential part of the musical expression. In so many areas of life—especially in music, dance, and design—we are taught to rehearse, refine, and perfect. Only when we’ve eliminated our errors do we feel ready to perform. But this project suggests the opposite. What if mistakes are the very thing that makes a performance meaningful?
This feels incredibly precious and unusual. It invites a kind of vulnerability that we don’t often associate with technology-based interfaces. There is something beautifully human about using failure as a medium. And more than that, it opens the door to people who might never have considered themselves performers. You don’t need skill to play this instrument. You just need to show up and try.
The paradox of getting better
One interesting point the authors raise is that, over time, players naturally begin to improve at juggling—even without trying. Our bodies quietly refine our motor skills in the background. As a result, the spontaneous mistakes that originally made the music expressive start to disappear, and the performance begins to feel more controlled and less surprising.
To counteract this, the authors suggest modifying the sound engine itself to subtly provoke mistakes. By introducing stochastic elements—randomized or unpredictable changes to how juggling movements are translated into sound—they can gently “distract” the performer. The idea is that the sonic feedback becomes less stable, less predictable, and this in turn prompts more slips and errors. I found this approach really elegant because it keeps the performer in that beautiful, vulnerable space of not quite knowing what’s going to happen next.
My thoughts
Personally, I find the idea of making music from failure deeply moving. It’s not just a technical innovation—it’s a philosophical one. It makes space for the unpolished, the nervous, the beginner. It reminds me that expression doesn’t have to come from mastery. It can come from trying, from stumbling, from not quite knowing what you’re doing.
In a culture that constantly pushes us toward perfection, this work feels like a breath of fresh air. It reminds me that technology doesn’t have to make us faster, better, or more precise. Sometimes, the most poetic thing it can do is reflect our imperfections back to us in a way that feels like music.
