How to play … popular music: Didactic action and the display of musical expertise in online tutorials

Abstract

Based on sample evaluation, this article investigates didactic actions and the display of expertise within the field of popular music-related online tutorials distributed on YouTube. In a first step, didactic activity and musical expertise are discussed with reference to institutional, interactional and media aspects in order to gain a comprehensive image of what influences the teaching of popular music. By means of the sample evaluation – the sample concentrates on highly-requested YouTube channels – basic insights into the specificity of the didactic situation induced by popular music-related online tutorials are to be provided. The analysis pays particular attention to the interlacing of knowledge organization, performance and audio-visual production. Overall, it can be shown how specific rules regarding the representation and gratification of expertise emerge in the YouTube media environment, examples of which are the “professional” appearance of the instructors and the compartmentalization of popular music-related cultural knowledge.