In the digital transformation of our music cultures, the computer was attributed as a universal instrument with unlimited aesthetic possibilities and the potential for the democratization of music production and distribution. Furthermore, it called into question notions of artistic creativity and virtuosity as well as the relationship between man and machine. Compared to other musical instruments, the computer increasingly gained technical agency, simulating not only other instruments but also compositional styles and musical cognition itself, as well as enabling new possibilities for interaction between artists and the audience. In the dynamic relationship between the producers of musical instruments and musicians, the 20th and 21st centuries saw the development of diverse technologies and artistic strategies that became productive as musical human-machine relationships, which are analyzed in the article. From mechanical music automatons, interactive sound and media art to music robots and artifcial intelligence, the article examines artistic strategies to reshape the relationship between musicians, machines, and the audience. It takes a closer look at four artistic strategies: The attempt to make music-making with the black box computer more comprehensible, using technical errors and inscriptions, playing with the anthropomorphization of technology, and approaches of the participatory involvement of the audience. Moreover, it looks at the topics that are negotiated through them: From (the loss of) control to power relations in society to authorship, law and economics in music culture. Using selected examples from Kraftwerk and Holly Herndon to the collaboratively constructed cyber celebrity Hatsune Miku, the diversity, ambivalence, openness and critical potential of musical human-machine relationships and their connection to the social contexts are elaborated.