Managing Sustainability in the Internet of Musical Things: A Bibliometric and Literature Review of IoT Integration in the Music Sector

This article presents a literature review and bibliometric analysis of research on the integration of the Internet of Things (IoT) in music, also known as the Internet of Musical Things (IoMusT) - from a sustainability perspective. The review identifies key themes including smart instruments, networked performance, music education and real-time interactive systems. Findings highlight the interdisciplinary nature of the field, bridging musicology, computer science and human-computer interaction. A bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer reveals global collaboration patterns across 76 countries. The United States, China, the United Kingdom and India emerge as leading contributors, while Romania plays a strategic bridging role. Keyword co-occurrence analysis identifies three thematic clusters: technical infrastructure, creative applications and computational approaches. Additionally, recent literature increasingly addresses the environmental and social sustainability of IoMusT systems, focusing on low-power devices, ethical data use, the reduction of CO2 emissions, changing the traditional methods of stocking music of all kinds and inclusive design. These findings underscore the potential of IoMusT to support multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 4, 9, 11 and 12). These results underscore the growth of IoMusT as a distinct academic subfield and point to future research opportunities in personalization, sustainability, ethical data use and responsible innovation.