One idea, two ways. The grid is a step sequencer: a playhead sweeps the bar, the words never move, and every tap you make is a note in the track rather than a click on top of it.
The two axes that must never answer for each other are now literally perpendicular. You cannot confuse them, and the rhythm can never leak the answer.
Your taps are the instrument. Every hit is a note from the track's pentatonic scale, walking upward as your combo builds — so a streak resolves into a melody and no interval can ever sound wrong. The instrument changes as the mix grows: woodblock, then pluck, then bell, then lead stab. Accuracy changes the timbre, not just the score — perfect hits ring bright and wet, late ones come out choked and dry. A miss doesn't buzz at you; it just leaves a hole where a note should have been.
Still synthesised, because an artifact can't fetch audio. It is built as buses — drums, bass, pads, lead, taps, with reverb and delay sends and the pads sidechained to the kick — so real stems drop straight into the same structure.