Web MIDI API: State of the Art and Future Perspectives

The Web MIDI API is intended to connect a browser app with Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI) devices and make them interact. Such an interface deals with exchanging MIDI messages between a browser app and an external MIDI system, either physical or virtual. The standardization by the World Wide Web (W3C) Consortium started about 10 years ago, with a first public draft published on October 2012, and the process is not over yet. Because this technology can pave the way for innovative applications in musical and extra-musical fields, the present paper aims to unveil the main features of the API, remarking its advantages and drawbacks and discussing several applications that could take benefit from its adoption.