Walking Drummer: Enabling Musical Participation via Footstep Percussion for Enhanced Engagement

Walking is a fundamental activity, but its monotonous nature lacks immediate sensory rewards, creating an “engagement gap” from the onset. While listening to music helps reduce boredom, the interaction typically remains passive. Previous Tempo-Matching Interaction (TMI) systems synchronize music tempo with walking pace to achieve rhythmic integration; however, walking itself remains acoustically silent and isolated from the musical context. To deepen this connection, we propose “Walking Drummer,” a system that achieves acoustic integration by converting footsteps into percussion sounds that harmonize with the user’s preferred music. This approach aims to bridge the engagement gap by transforming walking from a physical task into active “musical participation,” thereby enhancing immediate psychological engagement. We conducted a user study (N = 24) comparing three conditions: TMI (music only), TMI+Beep (neutral feedback), and TMI+Percussion (harmonized feedback). The TMI+Percussion condition yielded significantly higher ratings in acoustic harmony, musical participation, and engagement compared to the other conditions. Furthermore, participants actively adopted strategies to complement the musical structure or match its atmosphere. These findings suggest that acoustically integrating physical movements into music can transform walking into an engaging co-performance.