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A Model for Online Music Education

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DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-8047-9.ch012

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A Model for Online Music Education
Radio Cremata

Ithaca College, USA

ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes a sustainable model for online music education in post-secondary
contexts. This model is framed around the intersections and along the continua of formal and
informal music teaching/learning, conscious and unconscious knowing/telling, synchronous and
asynchronous musical e-spaces/places, currencies, and e-collaboration. The model maintains
deterritorialization (i.e., an e-space or e-place without boundary) as a foundational underpinning.
The purpose of this chapter is to interrogate notions of online music learning, challenge
preconceptions, and leverage innovation and technological advancement to redefine and re-
understand how music can be taught and learned in e-spaces and e-places. The chapter can serve
to disrupt traditional conceptions of musical teaching/learning. By disrupting the cycle that
perpetuates music education at the post-secondary level, this chapter seeks to leverage online
innovation, draw out technological inevitabilities, and push the music education profession
forward towards new frontiers.

Keywords:Informal/Formal Learning, Conscious Knowing/Telling, Unconscious

Knowing/Telling, E-spaces/places, Synchronous/Asynchronous, e-
Collaboration, Currencies, Rhizomes, Deterritorialization, Online

INTRODUCTION
Background and Context
The post-secondary music teaching/learning profession, as a whole, would benefit by joining the
rest of the world by leveraging online cultures. Precisely how we do this is part of our challenge;
it requires careful considerations and adjustments in practices and approaches. Musical
transmissions are limited only to the musics, learning styles and pedagogies conceivable by
musicians, learners and teachers. What is required here is that we first recognize that we have for
many years, intentionally or otherwise, established some habits. These teaching/learning habits
are part of our default approach (Regelski, 2013). We have established ways of doing what we
do - and those ways are repeated so much that a kind of groove has been established. This is akin
to a well-worn path in which teachers and learners reinsert themselves cyclically, year-to-year,
without much in the way of critical thought. Huberman and Miles (1984) refer to this as
engrooved practices.

Is there anything wrong with engroovement? Certainly not inherently. Tried and true approaches
that may have worked in the past can continue to work in the future. But, with innovation comes
possibility. We can now jump out of our groove and step into formerly unimaginable ones
becoming groove makers. As groove makers, we can now look at computer networks and online
learning as new modalities and venues for musical transmission.

Online learning is not a new phenomenon (Major, 2015). Online learning in music is also not
new by any means. Unfortunately, to date, most of the teaching and learning of music in online
contexts closely resembles traditional (brick and mortar) music teaching and learning. For
example, teachers and content specialists of online classes often upload the curricular content of
what typically is transmitted in non-virtual spaces, giving learners asynchronous access to it.
Historically, an online music class looks very similar to a non-virtual one. There are dedicated
areas related to announcements, modular and sequentially outlined curricular content,
opportunities for assessments and forums for discussion. Because music teachers have aimed to
replicate non-virtual music learning in virtual spaces, not much that is different or innovative has
become mainstream in online music education. The content and pedagogic strategies embedded
within, typically closely parallel their non-virtual cousins. In essence, we have merely onlinified
the content of music curricula. We have done well to take this first step—we have enlarged the
participant base creating new access points and cleared the road for future adaptation. There does
exist potential in online music education to leverage technologies more to decentralize the
teacher, engage more of the learner and adapt to the specific needs of each.

Online, as a term, may frighten some. It may be loaded with connotations that fail to capture the
human, organic interactions afforded by face-to-face communications (Conrad, 2002). Those
fears are valid. We should address those concerns and find ways to make online music learning
acoustically and musically rich. Online, as a term, may excite some. It may open up musical,
sharing and experiencing possibilities once inconceivable (Johnson, Wisniewski, Kuhlemeyer,
Isaacs & Kryzkowski, 2012). Those excitements are valid as well. The key here is to honor both
critics and supporters, and provide a way for all voices to move forward in this discussion.

In order to remain viable and sustainable in an evolving and diverse educational and musical
edusphere, post-secondary music teaching/learning ought to establish broader and more diverse
approaches. Conservatories are havens for excellence, and certainly the aim of conservationism
has its merits. The push away from traditions towards progressivism also holds merit,
particularly as it allows for greater diversity. More specifically, online learning and other efforts
to integrate more contemporary pedagogies in music education context has the potential to
capture broader learnerships, students of all backgrounds, and embrace all forms of music
including those beyond the western canon (Willliams, 2007).

Currently, music education in post-secondary contexts is outmoded, outdated and in desperate

need of an update. Tertiary music education, while once contemporary and culturally responsive,
continues to cling to a 19th century model of conservatory training customized for professional
classical performers (Kratus, 2007). This culture permeates collegiate music learning in many
departments including music education—which ironically is called to address the preparation
and promotion of music educators for the future. In order to remain relevant, connected, and
responsive to an evolving musical, teaching and learning ecosystem, it is incumbent upon the
music education profession to seriously investigate teaching and learning in digital musical
spaces and places.
Important to this discussion is the consideration that some things should remain the same. We
ought not turn our backs on what we already do at a high level. Yet, technologies can serve to
bridge chasms and forge new possibilities that might be more inclusive, efficient and flexible.
The entire world is experiencing a paradigm shift moving towards technological normalization.
Music teaching/learning has the potential to explore entirely new musical spaces and places. It
could be said that we are at the precipice of a new musical and pedagogical frontier.

The purpose of this chapter is to (a) interrogate notions of informal music learning, (b) challenge
pre-conceptions of what constitutes musical spaces/places, and (c) leverage innovation and
technological advancement to redefine and re-understand e-collaboration. Aligned to this
purpose, the goal of the chapter is to forge ahead as a profession working towards a new model
for deterritorialized music education.

Chapter Organization
To explore opportunities within this new musical and pedagogical frontier, this chapter proposes
a sustainable model for online music education in post-secondary contexts. This model is framed
around the intersections and along the continua of formal and informal music teaching/learning,
conscious and unconscious knowing/telling, synchronous and asynchronous musical e-
spaces/places, currencies and e-collaboration. The model maintains deterritorialization (i.e., an e-
space or e-place without boundary) as a foundational underpinning. In order to situate the model,
we will first have a three-pronged discussion of related literature and ideas in the following
categories:

• 1. Reductive Binaries: Formal/Informal Music Teaching/Learning

• 2. Online Formal/Informal Music Teaching/Learning
• 3. E-Collaboration in Music Teaching and Learning

First, we call into question the reductive binary of formal/informal music learning. Drawing
upon extensive research (Cremata & West, 2016; Feichas, 2010; Folkestad, 2006; Green, 2002;
Johansson, 2004), the chapter explores notions of learning along the continuum of the
formal/informal binary. In particular, the chapter highlights examples of music learning that
underscore how learners and pedagogues functionally operate within them. It also identifies how
online music learning might require a more nuanced understanding of what it is to teach and
learn informally and formally in distinct and in blended formal and informal contexts. Next, we
take the topic of formal/informal music learning into online specific contexts. Using additional
research (Brown & Dillon 2007; Cremata & Powell, 2017; Jordan, 2008), a case is made for
inclusion of an Online Deterritorialized Music Education model.

The chapter defines and delimits what constitutes formal/informal music learning in e-
spaces/places. Notions of e-collaboration in music teaching and learning are further defined
through additional research (Cremata & Powell, 2017; Cremata & Powell, forthcoming;
Waldron, Horsley & Veblen, forthcoming) to unpack the processes and possibilities music
teachers and learners can employ in e-collaboration. Various approaches and conceptions of e-
collaboration, including conventional social media outlets, existing online music collaboration
resources, and emerging collaborative tools for musicians are considered.
Specifically, considerations on how online music learning leverages participatory culture and
collective-intelligences to create rhizomatic learning spaces are made. The metaphor of the
rhizome is used because, in nature, a rhizome is an underground stem of a plant that creeps
around sending out roots and shoots from its nodes. Akin to the rhizome, an online learner can
discover their meanings through a series of non-sequential exploratory steps, reacting to evolving
circumstances, promoting fluidity to the evolving redefinition of the task at hand (Cormier,
2008). Metaphoric rhizomes occur in online contexts because the community can act as the
curriculum, knowledge is negotiated, and learning experiences are social filled with mutable
goals (Cormier, 2008). This section of the chapter builds the case for e-collaboration and
motivations for collaboration or currencies as core ingredients to the model.

To illustrate the ideas outlined in this chapter, specific examples of online classes are provided.
The four examples given outline a broad, but certainly not exhaustive, menu of online music
teaching and learning contexts. These examples are explained in contexts, and later explored
with the goal being to relate them to a larger discussion about possibilities regarding how and
where post-secondary music teaching and learning can occur and take place in re-envisioned, re-
conceptualized, and re-conceived musical and pedagogical e-spaces and e-places.

The next section then takes the previous sections forward to articulate the Online
Deterritorialized Music Education model: a theoretical framework for music teaching and
learning in online contexts. The section outlines how this is a sustainable model for the future of
music education in post-secondary contexts. Visual aids illustrate the model in its various stages
with explanations and examples of how it applies to the four prior examples. The model further
illustrates, in detailed explanations, its relation to the various branches of music teaching and
learning in post-secondary contexts. These contexts include music performance, music
education, musicology and music theory among others.

Finally, the chapter concludes with solutions and recommendations, and future research
directions. This final section focuses on the implications and recommendations to the field
through the adoption of the new model for deterritorialized music education. Accordingly, this
section provides suggested steps for demolition, remodeling, integration, and sustainability
forging into a new music teaching/learning ecosystem.

RELATED LITERATURE
Reductive Binaries: Formal/Informal Music
Teaching/Learning
It is reductive to think of music teaching/learning operating as either purely formal or purely
informal in nature. How exactly formal or informal the teaching/learning is or can be might have
something to do with a variety of contexts. Notably, a variety of researchers (Cremata & West,
2016; Feichas, 2010; Folkestad, 2006; Green, 2002; Johansson, 2004) have brought this into
focus.
Folkestad (2006) explains that teaching/learning to an extent must always be a kind of formal
process where roles are assumed of teacher and/or learner:

Teaching is always teaching, and in that sense, always formal. As soon as someone teaches, as
soon as somebody takes on the role of being a teacher, then it is a formal learning situation. Even
if there is no structure that is the structure. (pp. 142–143)

As roles are assumed and approaches initiated, there remains some degree of flexibility implicit
to the role playing. Music learning is nuanced and, as a result, so is teaching. Teachers are
adaptive, and learners explore and construct knowledge. It is not uncommon for music learners
to evaluate their understandings, reflect them back to teachers, peers, or self, and engage in a
kind of socially interactive approach that leverages and builds upon prior knowledge and
community. In online learning contexts, this process is particularly important. For example, the
learners may be able to personalize their sequential learning processes navigating course content
in adaptive non-linear ways. Teachers may be able to respond to the individual needs of students
or target specific learning challenges by adding iteratively to the course content adapting to the
dynamic demands of learners.

Moreover, the spaces and places in which the teaching and learning can and do take place may
impose particular strictures that require either more formality or informality to the processes. For
example, with online learning, the potential for both synchronous and asynchronous options
enables and empowers teachers and learners in uniquely different ways. Music teachers and
learners assume different responsibilities in these e-spaces and e-places. In the case where the
online teacher provides asynchronous instruction, one might think that the teacher’s contribution
to the learning process is less formal, calling upon the learner to do more than might be the case
if the instructor was synchronously engaged with the learner. Conversely, the synchronous
instructor might feel a greater sense of commitment to the process. By being co-located or co-
occupying the temporal space with the learner, the onus may be more on the teacher. The
teacher’s sense of commitment to teach may be stronger in this context. It is interesting to note
that there is nothing particularly restrictive or better about either environment. They are simply
different—different environmental spaces and communication modalities. Also, the potential
exists to integrate one into the other (e.g., blended learning). This actually may already be
happening in environments within universities and with private teaching. One can imagine
contexts where music history or theory teachers flip their classrooms providing students
opportunities to learn/practice tasks at home, ensembles directors creating online practice spaces
to facilitate asynchronous sectional work, private lesson teachers doing some in person and
online lessons through Skype, and a variety of other such manifestations.

Interestingly, both formal and informal learning may contain overlapping teaching approaches.
Merriam (1964) identified three teaching techniques that can take place in informal (i.e., non-
formal) learning, as well as formal learning. These techniques include: motivation, guidance and
rewarding. We see the intersection of these approaches not fitting cleanly into separate
formal/informal approaches. Indeed, the notion of a pure formal or informal approach to
teaching/learning is beyond reductive; it seems to miss the larger point. Formal learning may in
fact include informal teaching, and informal learning may in fact include some formal teaching.
One could posit that both learning approaches need each other and operate in symbiotic and
contextually dependent manners. Herndon and McLeod (1981) suggest that there are at least six
such possibilities. They define the following six methods of teaching/transmission and
acquisition: teaching by example, metaphor, rote, coaching, learning without teacher, and
learning with a supernatural teacher. If we consider these six methods, we can see that they are
helpful for delineating the variety along a continuum between formal and informal learning.
While these six examples are helpful, they are by no means comprehensive.

The tangled notions of formal/informal teaching/learning are complex. Universal agreement

among music scholars is lacking with regard to how these approaches are parsed. Therefore, it
may be helpful to consider them through a goal-based perspective. Fornäs, Lindberg, and
Sernhede (1995, p. 230) argue that an institutionalized (i.e., formalized) learning process is often
goal-oriented with ready-made aims, curricula, and study plans. On the other side of the goal lens
would be what Campbell (2001) describes as informal, non-linear, cooperative learning. This
context is controlled by a social group rather than by an individual. Campbell describes a
process-oriented approach that focuses on experiences over outcomes. Ziehe (1986) notes, that
the informal learner experiences a detached learning awareness. Here the goal may be less
focused or not established at all. Together, these explanations help underscore the complexity of
a finite notion of formal and informal teaching.

To further elaborate on informal music learning, Green (2008, 2006, 2001) explains that informal
learning is situated in a particular way causing the student and teacher to adopt particular roles.
Green explains that informal is ‘where the student is’, and the teacher must first try to be in the
same network. Once here, the teacher then becomes a facilitator and sharer of students’
knowledge. Cremata (2017) explains in detail how a facilitator might operate in a variety of high
and low control contexts. Cremata further notes that oftentimes a facilitator embodies both
formal and informal processes dependent upon the demands of the classroom combined with the
facilitator’s desired level of control. These ideas demonstrate how informal educational practices
can decentralize the teacher(s), migrating outward toward the periphery —in turn expanding and
empowering the student(s).

While these ideas exist neatly in conceptual form, they are often mixed and mingled in real-life
practice. For example, an online music class based on informal music learning, or one that adopts
musical styles commonly transmitted through informal learning processes, might make use of at
least some degree of formal teaching. That is, the role of the teacher, the positioning of the
teacher as the starting point for information sharing, the power structures implicit to the
teaching/learning culture, and the models of assessment, might require drawing from formal
approaches to some extent. The content itself may be appropriate for learner-led or informal
learning approaches. However, the teacher or institution’s pre-determined display (e.g.,
multimedia, technology tools used), access (e.g., LMS), and student assessment (e.g., grading
schemes) within an online context, requires some dimension of formal teaching/learning. These
aspects often require higher levels of teacher-directed instruction. It is important to note here that
the technologies can often impose upon the pedagogies and learning styles. While there still may
be a tendency to draw from formal teaching in contexts of informal learning, it does not have to
function this way. Since online learning has the particular advantage of providing more specific
learner adaptability, or personalization, an option exists for the learner to construct his or her
own individual meanings. In short, the formal mode can focus more on teaching and the informal
mode focus more on learning. Either way, it is reductive to think of music teaching and learning
operating as either purely formal or purely informal—it operates in various forms at both the
poles of its binary formation and along the continuum.

Online Formal/Informal Music Teaching/Learning

When music learning is situated online, the processes, experiences, approaches and interactions
are necessarily impacted (Peters, 2017). This may require a teacher to adjust pre-conceived
notions of what in fact constitutes legitimate, or even functional, pedagogic styles. There will
likely be, at least initially, some form of resistance, bias and obstruction by practitioners who
hold steadfast to the non-online approaches as based on their previous promoted experiences. It
could be said that these resisters are engrooved. This will likely change with time.

There is no doubt that online interactions will become more normalized in culture. Examples of
this normalization include FaceTiming, Skyping, Texting, FaceBooking, eLearning, eTeaching,
and eDating, (Kappas and Kramer, 2011). Music education has a part to play in this ongoing
evolution. Therefore, it would be helpful to first define and delimit what constitutes
formal/informal music learning in e-spaces and e-places.

An e-space may account for the platform or Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) whereas the e-
place may account for the web address or locality of the space (Hollenbeck, Zinkhan & French,
2015). The above discussion on conceptual boundaries of informal/formal music teaching and
learning highlighted how such boundaries are more intersectional than siloed. To decrease
complication of this conceptualization, this chapter defines formal online music teaching and
learning as intentional by both the teacher and learner. That is, it is conscious, teacher-centered,
preconceived and planned, curriculum oriented, scaffoldable, and sequential and/or linear.
Additionally, for the purposes of this chapter, informal online music teaching and learning is
exploratory, unconscious, learner-centered, unplanned, context oriented, personalized, and
spiraled and/or rhizomatic. While reductive and certainly not exhaustive, the side-by-side
comparison below (Table 1) differentiates the two concepts.

Table 1. Comparison of Formal and Informal Online Music Teaching and Learning
Formal Online Music Teaching and Learning Informal Online Music Teaching and Learning
1. Intentional by both the teacher and 1. Exploratory by both the teacher and
learner learner
2. Conscious 2. Unconscious
3. Teacher-centered 3. Learner-centered
4. Preconceived and planned 4. Unplanned
5. Curriculum oriented 5. Context oriented
6. Scaffoldable 6. Personalized
7. Sequential and/or linear 7. Spiraled and/or rhizomatic

It is helpful to conceive of contexts for learning through the notion of situated cognition (Brown,
Collins, & Duguid, 1989). Brown, Collins, and Duguid (1989) suggest that situated cognition
emphasizes interactions between the learner, other learners, and tools in a sociocultural context.
Online learning is positioned particularly well to allow for interactive and dialogical transmission
of musical ideas. In online settings, idea sharing can flow in multiple directions encouraging
communal understandings. For this chapter, the sociocultural context that we will consider is the
Internet and online e-spaces and e-places for the teaching and learning of music.

In the music context, the root of situated cognition is the act of doing music—or what Elliot
(1995) describes as musicking. Jacobson (1996) notes that situated interactions take place in the
context of practice, and are characterized by modeling of both mastery of practice, and the
process of gaining mastery. Here the music teacher might model their skill or provide a platform
for engaged doing-based learning where the student has an opportunity to respond and/or learn
through action. Hansman & Wilson (2002) explain that the concept of situated cognition
positions learning not in dependent isolation of internal thoughts and ideas, (e.g., the learner’s
headspace), but as more dependent upon and shaped by the context, culture and tools in the
learning situation. That is, instead the cognition is communal and interactive. Graziano and Feher
(2016) suggest the nature of the interactions among learners and student teachers in online
teaching contexts, together with the tools they use within these interactions, the activity itself,
and the social context in which the activity takes place, shape learning and knowledge. Some of
the most effective approaches that they have found for the student teachers in these online
contexts included the ability to communicate using a variety of methods, including phone, text,
email, and video chat.

E-spaces and e-places are localities in which online happenings take place (Hollenbeck, Zinkhan
& French, 2015). These are physically defined spaces (e.g., virtual space, LMSs, web browser,
etc.) and places (e.g., one’s home or office space) yet they can be different physical locations and
virtual space for each individual. While at this stage in human and digital evolution, we are
experiencing a shift towards the digital, some teachers find themselves clinging to a specific
physical ideal. Due to this, we sometimes fail to see how physical and virtual spaces and places
are interdependent. Whiteley & Rambarran (2016) remind us that the distinction has become
obsolete and that we instead ought to focus on the intersections, mutations, and transmigrations
of the virtual and the real.

This notion of intersection becomes integral for exploring the model described in the latter
sections of this chapter. Herein, formal and informal music teaching and learning is
superimposed with e-spaces/places. This functions as the nucleus of the model for online
deterritorialized music education. This model embraces and accounts for formal, informal,
physical, virtual, networked, synchronous, and asynchronous music teaching/learning. The next
section of the related literature elaborates on the notions of e-collaboration in which online music
teaching and learning is deeply situated.

E-Collaboration in Music Teaching and Learning

Collaboration is central to music teaching and learning (Cremata & Powell, 2017; Ruthmann,
2007). Therefore, by building on the aforementioned literature, we can infer that the inclusion of
using the online area (i.e., e-spaces) for collaboration, or e-collaboration, will also increase
access points for music teaching and learning. It opens up new gateways, and expands the
activity opportunities and peoples who can and will participate in, by and through it. In this
capacity, e-collaboration is poised to revolutionize the teaching and learning profession. Through
the varieties of portals, both intended and unintended for musical collaboration, music teachers
and learners can engage in non-colocated, collaborative musical exchanges (Jordan, 2008,
Cremata & Powell, 2017). This can occur through one-to-one, one-to-many, or many-to-many
communities (Turkle, 2011).

At the core of this new potential is the widespread adoption and normalization of
deterritorialized communication. That is, communication is no longer dependent on a specific
place or space. It can now take place through a spectrum of digital tools used in one’s e-place or
e-space. Gone are the days of relying exclusively on letter writing, emails, and phone calls.
Video conferencing, which is quickly gaining traction as an acceptable norm in social spaces
(Kappas and Kramer, 2011), have potential to create broad electronic villages of musical e-
collaborators.

Consider the platform of private lessons and the potentiality that exists to engage electronically
and deterritorially (i.e., without physical boundaries/borders). Some digital tools already adopted
by institutions and private market learners and enthusiasts include: AdobeConnect, Zoom and
private market online private lesson sites (e.g., www.takelessons.com; www.thezoen.com;
www.lessonface.com and www.livemusictutor.com). It is important to note that other more
conventional and widely used videoconference tools such as Facetime and Skype also enable a
wider more global engagement. These synchronous tools are merely the tip of the iceberg as we
begin to explore the new frontier of virtual spaces/places for collaborative musical exchange
(Ruthmann, 2007). As issues of latency and bandwidth are addressed, additional opportunities
for e-portals will come into greater focus and musical makers, learners and teachers will
naturally flock towards them to seek each other out. That is, fandoms and economies will emerge
and pedagogies will develop alongside this ongoing organic evolution (Tobias, 2013).

However, stakeholders need not be limited by synchronous collaborations (Dougiamas & Taylor,
2003). It is plausible for musical exchanges to also occur asynchronously. Consider a tool like
FlipGrid (www.flipgrid.com) where various forms of communities can engage in audio/visual
asynchronous digital discussion mimicking the discussion board model as popularized by early
online education platforms such as Blackboard, Moodle and eCollege. FlipGrid builds on the text
only discussion model by encouraging communities to use cameras and microphones from their
various computers, tablets and phones and embed their multimedia in posts and comments on
posts. These exchanges enable learners and teachers to asynchronously explore their challenges
and questions while allowing for rich dialogically-based audio and video feedback. As robust
content is exchanged, more potential will emerge to share and exchange in deeper more
meaningful ways.

It is also plausible that e-collaboration could be both synchronous and asynchronous (Brown &
Dillon, 2007). In this case, platforms blend the two temporal spaces and places for the promotion
of learning. This opportunity exploits the potential of both approaches with provision to uniquely
adapt to the particular needs of a given music learning context. One only needs to consider how
much a learner would benefit from both a weekly one-hour synchronous one-to-one private
lesson that can be coupled with an ongoing weekly asynchronous reflection, discussion and
video tutorials. The educational and economic advantages of blending synchronous and
asynchronous learning spaces were impossible prior to the advent of online music education and
e-collaboration.

It is also important to emphasize how music’s fluid and nimble nature can enable both
asynchronous and synchronous exchanges to occur simultaneously. For example, a musician
might record a musical idea rendering it an asynchronous event. At the same time, the act of
making music in the moment also creates a synchronous event. The two might be interlaid or
overdubbed. The nature of music’s paradoxical distinction and combination when considered in
the online environment, highlights the implicit potential available in online music education.
Consequently, we must learn to see beyond limits and preconceptions (Peters, 2017).

Larger group music classes can also be beneficiaries of e-collaboration through synchronous and
asynchronous modalities. E-teachers can guide groups of e-learners in much the same way. One
possibility is to explore the potential to group students into smaller groups. These smaller e-
groups might meet synchronously or asynchronously. They might use Learning Management
Systems (LMS) to systematically move through a modular, teacher-designed and scaffolded
learning experience. Learners might take advantage of such opportunities flexibly as time to
work at their own pace. They might synchronously or asynchronously collaborate with each
other, their teachers, other groups, or peers in similarly-designed classes/cohorts across the
globe.

Waldron, Horsley and Veblen (forthcoming) provide a comprehensive description of how

musical engagement can occur in, by, and through, social media. Cremata and Powell
(forthcoming) further explore these conceptions in their chapter on social media in music
teaching and learning. Central to the inquiry on social media and music learning is the
determination of what constitutes social media and social networks. Boyd & Ellison (2010)
suggest that the term Social Media might be broadened to encapsulate many sorts of e-spaces
and e-places. These may include a variety of tools, services, and applications which enable
people to interact with each other using network technologies. Drawing from Van Dijck (2013),
it is possible to conceive of social media in at least two varieties: Social Network Sites (SNSs),
and User-Generated Content (UGC).

SNSs are digital spaces where people come together forging inter-personal and/or group intra-
personal/group connections by leveraging technology to promote socialization. They include
digital spaces such as Facebook. UGCs are digital spaces where musicians come together to
support each other and engage with one another in creative musical projects and enterprises.
Examples of UGCs include Soundation, LoopLabs, JamStudio, UJam, and Indaba.

E-collaboration might look a little different as it evolves. Indaba music was among the first to
rise out of the advent of computer networks and musical digitalization. Such online music
collaboration villages were an inevitable socio-cultural phenomenon and have existed for at least
a decade already. Through emergence of online communities and connections, humans naturally
sought each other out in global e-spaces and e-places. Consequentially, expertise emerged from
communities of musical practice (Barrett, 2005; Partti, 2014). The pedagogical and learner
experience outcomes of these interactions were explored by Cremata and Powell (2017). They
found these opportunities affirmed the benefits of e-collaborations to include increased student
agency, freedom and flow (ibid).

While Hollywood has mystified audiences perpetuating the indoctrination of Neo-Luddism

social thinking (Wierzbicki, 2017) that we are in a race of man versus machine, the truth is that
we are becoming more human in the process. We are realizing our potential and pushing new
boundaries. Kelly (2016) reminds us that with the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) we did
not diminish the performance of purely human chess players. Quite the opposite. For example,
innovation in AI chess programs inspired more people than ever to play chess, at more
tournaments than ever, and the human players got better than ever. We should expect the same to
be true for music, that because of technological innovation and onlinification, we will stretch and
grow as a species to be even more musical than we are currently.

Through our understandings and ongoing appreciation for the viability and functionality of e-
collaboration, current music teachers should consider ways to decentralize their instruction and
provide a more open musical learning space where learners collaborate with each other’s e-
creations through online DAWs (e.g., www.soundtrap.com). Herein, communities can form
rhizomatically (Cormier, 2008; Deleuze and Guattari,1988; O’Leary, 2015), teachers can
function as facilitators (Cremata, 2017) and the music and creations fostered collaboratively can
operate as the curricular content. One can envision how e-collaboration can transform the ways
and means by which music is learned, taught and engaged within.

EXAMPLES OF ONLINE MUSIC

TEACHING & LEARNING
For the purposes of this section of the chapter, it can be helpful to consider examples. Below are
four different examples of online music teaching and learning. The goal of these examples is to
relate them to a larger discussion about possibilities for how and where post-secondary music
teaching and learning can occur and take place in new re-conceptualized musical and
pedagogical e-spaces and e-places.

Example A is an online reflection space for 20 sophomore-level undergraduate students studying

elementary general methods in music education. Here students respond to brief written prompts
in 90-second video recordings. The reflection space serves as a supplement to non-online, in-
class synchronous, learner-led experiential learning. The professor of the class intentionally
focuses on learner-led experiential processes in class, providing students opportunities to
construct their own knowledge through the guidance of a facilitator. As part of the experiential
learning, students complete varieties of in-class teachings and presentations. This usually
consists of brief five- to ten-minute mock lessons where students role-play as young children
while one student-as-teacher leads an activity. There are also classes where the professor leads
the activities and models sample lessons/activities. After class, on the students’ own time,
students are charged with the task of responding to written prompts and recording their own 90
second videos. There are weekly prompts. The students then have the opportunity to view each
other’s videos and respond to each other. The professor asks that the students respond to at least
2 of their peers each week. The software that enables this is non-institutional (not provided by
the university) and is subscription driven. It is accessible through smartphone, tablet or
computer.

Example B is an online graduate class with 25 professional, in-service music teachers pursuing
master’s degrees in music education. The content of the class is technology-based music
instruction. The students have mixed backgrounds in technology-based music instruction. While
some are new to notions of digital music making, others teach music with and through
technology. Materials are organized into weekly units or modules. The intention of the online
class is to provide asynchronous (i.e., log in and learn on your own time) opportunities for busy
professionals. There are assigned readings, pre-recorded instructional videos illustrating some
concepts in the readings, spaces for typed asynchronous discussion, and weekly assignments
aimed at measuring student mastery of concepts explored throughout the weekly module. The
professor has the option of calling for a mandatory or optional live synchronous session through
the virtual collaborative space. These live sessions can be recorded and viewed asynchronously.
The software is provided by the university and accessed through computer browsers.

Example C is a blended online undergraduate (eight students) and graduate (two students) class
on emerging practices in music education. The content of the class is the exploration of
new/emergent approaches to music teaching and learning. The university has reserved/provided a
physical space (room in the music building) and a scheduled weekly time. The professor of the
class, however, intentionally uses the online e-space/e-place even though he and the students are
on campus and co-located in the same city. The professor and any students or guests can load
presentational materials, videos, documents or other items into the e-space prior to class. Online
music making can occur synchronously. The class takes place synchronously with students
sometimes also sharing the same physical space and using headphones to isolate audio and
account for feedback. Guests from around the world join in and share with the class. Each class
is recorded using a screen capture tool. The software is institutionally provided through an office
of digital instructional services, but is being piloted and not currently part of the university-wide
learning management system.

Example D is a private piano/keyboarding studio where students are not co-located in the same
physical space as the teacher. The teacher uses video conferencing technology and MIDI
interface to enable nimble on-screen instruction. Specifically, the teacher uses Internet Midi and
Classroom Maestro by www.timewarptech.com. The teacher meets with the student
synchronously and interacts live with the student exchanging verbal and musical ideas. The class
is also recordable and viewable asynchronously.

Each of the above examples is a response to either a student need or a professor’s vision. For
example, the experiential learners and their professor in Example A, benefit from hands on
learning in class, and an online forum for reflection afterwards. This makes the best use of in-
class time to keep the learning concrete, music driven and applied, and the time away from class
conceptual, reflective and abstract. Likewise, working professionals in Example B might find the
log in and learn on your own time adaptable to their busy schedules. The students in Example C
benefit from blended experiences particularly as this helps them better understand the potentials
implicit to online teaching and learning. It is helpful to note that even though the students might
be meeting in person in the classroom, the adoption of the online portal opens up possibilities
and allows learners to explore this as an option which they may then use themselves in their
applied teaching contexts. Example D enables teachers and students, who might be from
different geographical locations, pathways for musical interaction. They all present unique
possibilities and opportunities for online music education. While Example A uses the
asynchronous online space to supplement the synchronous non-online course, Example B uses
the asynchronous online space as a substitute for the synchronous. This is helpful for Example
B’s busy working professionals (in-service music educators) likely pursuing career advancement
and/or certification. Example C uses online learning as a means to illustrate emergent music
education practices. Even though the physical space is reserved for weekly meetings, the
professor chooses to use the virtual and leverages it in ways to advance pedagogic possibilities.
Example D simply opens up possibilities no longer restricting teachers and learners to the same
physical spaces.

These four examples are not exhaustive by any means. However, they represent four disparate
approaches and bring focus to the many ways online music teaching and learning may be
situated. It is conceivable that the elements of Examples A and B can be integrated into
Examples C and D. Additionally, any permutation of these integrations is also plausible. For
example, the online asynchronous reflection space (e.g., Example A) might serve as an optional
assignment provided by a visiting guest joining the class from across the ocean (e.g., Example C)
or as a way to upload asynchronous examples of student practice routines or challenges (e.g.,
Example D). The guest in Example C might ask the students to complete some modules on a
locally-owned network resembling Example B. The professor may then ask the students to
compose their own music in pairs using collaborative web-based tools such as
www.soundtrap.com. Those same students might be asked to use the reflection space (e.g.,
Example A) to update the entire class on their pairs’ progress.

Just as the intersections exist between formal and informal music learning, so too can the e- and
non-e-spaces/e-places intersect with one another. The limitations of this seem mainly to lie in the
availability of the platform, the vision of the teacher, and the orientation of the learner. Each
context is an outgrowth of an evolving and adapting pedagogic ecosphere. Bennett (2014) tells
us that the cultural fabric of everyday life is diversifying in ever more rapid cycles of change.
Kelley (2016) reminds us that technological innovations are inevitable and a by-product of
previous innovations. It would serve us well as a profession to look towards the future by
blending the varieties of online music learning and celebrating the permutations and options
implicit within them.

A MODEL FOR ONLINE

DETERRITORIALIZED MUSIC
EDUCATION
Through an extensive search of literature, there does not appear to be a model in any published
literature promoting broad and inclusive forms of online music education. Such a model would
help the profession understand the many ways online music teaching and learning operate. This
does not mean that research is the only solution; it simply means that critical discussion on this
topic can help advance the dialogue in the profession. We can see, by observing the many
manifestations of online music education, that not only is it already happening, it also appears
that it will continue to evolve. The social demands and technological opportunities are naturally
leading us in that direction. As a profession, we would be wise to dialogue about how precisely it
functions. An online music education model needs to be broad enough to capture the multitudes
of possibilities, while also remain specific enough to articulate musical ways of engagement.
What we need as a profession is a way forward. One such way forward is to conceptualize an
inclusive framework of online deterritorialized music education.

Hopefully this model is neither prescriptive nor constraining. In time, scholars will question and
rethink this model. This will likely lead to new iterations of this first model. I hope that this first
step can help propel the profession in new and interesting directions that help us navigate the
future of music teaching and learning. We have immense potentialities in music education, and
are poised to do great things in the future, particularly if we can learn how to harness our human
and artificial intelligences in physical and electronic spaces synchronously and asynchronously.

Formal/Informal
At the heart of the model is learning and teaching—both of which are naturally entwined and
tangled. Music is learned and taught in a variety of ways. The binary of formal/informal, while
reductive, in conceptual form, serves as a means to bring notions into focus. Even if we are to
conceptualize teaching and learning as purely formal or informal, the reality is that it might
operate somewhere along spectrum or continuum. It is important to remember that formal
learning might sometimes require kinds of both formal and informal teaching. Informal learning
might also function in this complex interdependent way. The reductive nature of the binary
demands that we understand the continua between the concepts and the interdependence both
learning and teaching impose upon each other in formal and informal modalities.

Online learning is well-suited to account for learning and teaching as interdependent,

intertwined, and intermingled. For example, the teacher may find him/herself operating more as a
facilitator than a direct instructor (Cremata, 2017) and guiding the learner(s) from the periphery
and not the center. The facilitator may migrate into the learners’ spaces/places as a co-learner or
at least a co-musical creator or participant. Likewise, the learner may act as or become the
teacher either formally or informally. The learner may be acting as a teacher particularly in
paired sharing, mentored or tutorial contexts. In addition, the learner may be asked to or be self-
empowered to take over an online module, live class, or lead a collaborative music ensemble.
The learner might be engaged in a formal class, but pursue ideas on his/her own pace and interest
through informal discovery. One can conceive of many other examples.

Each of these contexts might require an online interface and learning system that is adaptive,
predictive and responsive to the nuanced needs of each learner. Below we have the first half of
the nucleus of the model. It illustrates the nuanced distinctions and intersections for formal and
informal teaching and learning. One example that might illustrate this is from Example D above
where a private teacher might engage his piano/keyboard students in the online lesson. The
teaching may migrate between formal and informal as might the learning depending on context,
needs and demands of circumstances. At times, the teacher may act more as a coach, and the
learner may lead the learning. At other times, the teacher may provide direct instruction and the
learner engage more passively.

Figure 1. Two-dimensional nucleus: ODME

Conscious and Unconscious Knowing/Telling

Overlapping this binary is both a conscious and unconscious knowing and/or telling. It is helpful
to consider this through a widely accepted training model attributed to Burch’s (1970) work for
the US Gordon Training International Organization. Burch (1970) explained the stages of
competence as starting with unconscious incompetence wherein the learner is unaware of his/her
lack of a particular skill. One step higher in competence is conscious incompetence where the
learner now realizes the importance of a skill, but fails execution. Next, is conscious competence
wherein the learner, through practice, can now do the skill but has to think about each step.
Lastly, Burch suggested there is mastery or unconscious competence wherein the learner can do
this skill effortlessly without much conscious thought. In each of these stages, the competence
grows.

Burch’s competence model has been adapted here to conceptualize it in terms of knowing and
telling. This works well when situated in online music learning because it accounts for both the
knower and the teller who are both dialogically intertwined and also pedagogically tangled. The
conscious knower often functions as a learner and is aware of his/her knowledge and
pursuit/acquisition of knowledge. The conscious teller intends to communicate knowledge which
might lead to understandings. The unconscious knower can be a master at what he/she knows
and at the same time not necessarily be aware of what s/he knows. The unconscious teller may be
unaware of any deliberate telling. Interestingly, and in large part due to digitalization, this
unconscious teller may be a person or a non-sentient AI that is programed to behave adaptively
to the learner. Important to this four-way conceptualization is to understand that, in online music
learning contexts, the knower can function as a teller and vice-versa, both consciously and
unconsciously.

If we situate conscious and unconscious telling in online contexts, we have at least two distinct
roles. The conscious teller might be the online teacher or the online programmer. Here we might
draw from Example B above where the teacher programs a class for busy working professionals.
The unconscious teller could be an artificial form of intelligence (e.g., algorithm that predicts a
learner’s tendencies, or an online learning tool that helps advance learning). Such technology
might also work well in Example D, the online private keyboard/piano lesson. Perhaps the
teacher could provide the student a computer assisted instruction tool (e.g., Synthesia) to guide
the piano learning (Cremata & Powell, 2016). Such tools can be programmed to be responsive to
a learner’s needs and operate into action through a series of non-sequential, rhizomatic learning
modules neither prescribed nor planned by an online portal or repository. As mentioned above,
Cormier (2008) reminds us how the web operates rhizomatically. It is described as an ideal place
for learning—where the classroom/community/network is an ecosystem where learners spread
their own understandings among the pieces of information available.

It is possible to conceive of other online contexts where the teaching and learning is mediated
through conscious and unconscious knowing and/or telling. For example, a guest in the class of
Example C above might create a maker space or discussion forum with open-ended
questions/prompts that provoke musical creation, idea-sharing and discovery-learning. The
teacher/facilitator may engage as a co-learner/creator and/or the students might migrate over to
the conscious telling role where they take the leadership of the online community. Moreover, an
Artificial Intelligence (AI) might be programmed to auto-predict learner responses. It could
guide them in new directions prompting even more discovery and learning that departs beyond
teacher-centered sequential curricular dissemination and into the AI guided, non-sequential,
rhizomatic learner e-space. This might work well in Example B above where students explore
technology based music instruction that they might apply in their classrooms in which they
already work full time. It is necessary to identify that these exchanges are complex. Just as
synchronicity and asynchronicity are entwined phenomena, they are essential to capture the
nature of how learners can also be teachers and learning can happen formally and informally all
at the same time.

This model provides a four-dimensional nucleus that accounts for formal and informal teaching
and learning and conscious and unconscious knowing and telling. Most importantly, it is best to
conceive of each of these four concepts along the continua and at their intersections. The model
below illustrates the four-dimensional nucleus.

Figure 2. Four-dimensional nucleus: ODME

Spatial and Temporal Contexts
Moving outward, beyond the nucleus of this model, we account for the spatial and temporal
dimensions. Encompassing learning, teaching, and knowing and telling, are virtual spaces and
places. The virtual spaces and places are both real and not real, synchronous and asynchronous.
Virtuality is still a kind of reality (Whiteley & Rambarran, 2016). They exist on screens, in
clouds, through networks, recorded, live and perpetually evolving. Since they are virtual, they
exist without typical territorial and temporal boundaries. The digital nature of the e-spaces and e-
places make them flexible, and limited only by human imaginations. E-spaces and e-places
function both as spaces and places independently and simultaneously, and can also be
synchronous and asynchronous all at the same time. How they interact with the nucleus is also
important. For example, an e-space may account for the platform or DAW, while the e-place
may account for the web address or locality of the space. In short, e-spaces are shells and e-
places are addresses for those shells.

Online music learning, particularly in post-secondary contexts, can involve one-to-one private
instruction and ensemble music making. Example D above highlights this opportunity. We are
no longer bound by a private instructor who may have a demanding travel schedule to be co-
located in the same physical learning space as his/her student(s). We are also no longer required
for private lessons to operate exclusively in synchronous fashion.

There are multitudinous possibilities for asynchronous and synchronous online music
teaching/learning. Several have emerged on the private market (e.g., www.takelessons.com;
www.thezoen.com; www.lessonface.com and www.livemusictutor.com). These virtual spaces
and places might serve as flexible communities for cooperative sharing, transmission and
engagement. Moreover, just as stages and recording studios are spaces, specific stages, or
recording studios are the places for those spaces. Ensembles might traditionally be all collocated,
but through virtual space/places, we can now have networked based deterritorialized ensembles
where the network can serve as the ensemble and cyberspace as the venue (Brown and Dillon,
2007). Example B above might function well for this. The students in this class might create a
virtual ensemble working at their own times asynchronously. Or they may bring their students
together from their classrooms that they already teach in so as to create either synchronous or
asynchronous virtual ensembles, depending on contexts.

Also, important to this discussion is to conceive of all spaces and places as real in spite of their
virtuality. By conceiving of them as real, they ought not be relegated to a ghettoized digital
fringe. It is essential that we carefully consider and accept the plurality of learning spaces and
places, including virtual ones, so as not to marginalize online music learning. Moreover, as we
come to terms with a broadened and more inclusive notion of spaces and places, we might also
make room for inclusive notions. This includes heeding Bell’s (2016) warning against erecting
false divisions between musical technologies and musical instruments. Here we can visualize the
model with these four additional concepts over the four-dimensional nucleus.

Figure 3. Four-Dimensional Nucleus Situated Spatially and Temporally: ODME

E-Collaboration
Moving outward beyond the spaces and places of this model, we should consider the dynamics
of e-collaboration. Whether the collaborators are learners, teachers, creators, co-learners, co-
creators, facilitators, fans, casual spectators, lurkers, or some other kind of e-participant, they are
all entwined. Collaboration in this model can occur formally or informally, consciously or
unconsciously, synchronously or asynchronously, in e-spaces and e-places, and along with a
variety of participants and styles of participation.

The e-collaborator may be seeking a kind of reward or currency for their participation. Certainly,
money is one kind of currency, however democratization of online music making, learning and
collaboration has led to other kinds of economies. These may include likes, affirmation and other
forms of peer recognition. Gloor (2006) calls these Collaborative Innovative Networks or
COINs. They consist of members who participate not for profit making, but because they are
fascinated by the challenge and care deeply about the goals implicit to the collaboration. In
COINs, collaborators’ primary currency of reward is peer recognition. The e-collaborator might
be a teacher in some organized learning community, a casual mentor overseas, a peer in the same
home as the learner, a co-creator in an online DAW community (e.g., Indaba Music) or an AI
(e.g., Yousition) designed to guide learners through a series of predicted learning patterns).
The examples above (i.e., A, B, C and D) might all interact with each other. For example, the
sophomore undergraduate students in Example A might collaborate with each other in reflective
spaces and with private instructors like the one in Example D. They may also be taking classes
like those in the mixed undergraduate/graduate class on emerging practices (e.g., Example C)
and build asynchronous musical content for classes that students in Example B might try out
with their students in their full-time jobs. Students in Example A may comment on the
reflections or in class teachings of their peers communicating the currency of peer recognition.
Together, we can see that online learning is nimble and sophisticated enough to be adaptive to
these contexts and allows for immense potential in collaboration and musical co-creation. Figure
4 below is the complete model. It includes the four-dimensional nucleus along with the
surrounding four elements of e-space, e-place, synchronous and asynchronous, plus the final two
contextual dimensions of e-collaboration and currencies.

Figure 4. Complete model: Online deterritorialized music education.

SOLUTIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The, Online Deterritorialized Music Education (ODME) model, tries to account for as much
dimensionality as conceivable at this early emergent stage of online music education. Certainly,
as technologies evolve, so too will the dynamics of the ways in which persons interplay with it.
The Online Deterritorialized Music Education model serves as a theoretical framework for music
teaching and learning in online contexts. This model seeks to capture what is essential to
teaching and learning in online contexts and is open for discussion and research.
Adopting this model might require some careful, and at times, cautious demolition,
consequential remodeling, and further integration. First, we must work cooperatively to demolish
the thinking and ideas that marginalize and ghettoize online learning. As discussed earlier, those
ideas are rooted in engroovement and hold back the progress of our profession. Many disciplines
are forging way ahead of music education in online learning, and they are better for it (Pollard,
2017; Fong et al, 2017). They have brought their profession forward and increased access and
opportunity. It is now time for the music education profession to accept the phenomenon and
adapt to it.

We know that music educators can be reluctant to establish new norms and learn new ways to
engage. This likely inhibits their understanding and appreciation for the possibilities online
music teaching and learning possess. One suggestion to help the profession jump out of this
groove is for all stakeholders to be more accessible and share their works and/or practices. For
example, online music education practitioners should proudly and broadly display their
successful experiences with online music teaching and learning to help those more reluctant to
come to appreciate these innovations. We can do this through social media, conference
presentation, publication and classroom teaching and collaboration. We would all benefit by
those who take an aggressive and active role in broadcasting and celebrating their or their peers’
innovations and achievements.

As we work as a profession to continue to demolish engrooved thinking, we can begin to

remodel the institutionalized practices for music teaching and learning. One suggestion is to re-
envision curricula to include online music learning as integral components to both music content
and pedagogic discourse. Such remodeling will require hiring innovative faculty to create and
teach these classes and collaborate to re-envision new possibilities. In order to make this
adjustment flexible and relevant, we must also work alongside all music educators (those in
teacher preparation and those in the other branches such as performance, theory and musicology
and engineering) to recruit students who are inclined towards these newer ways of engaging in
and through music and technology.

Lastly, as we remodel the institutionalized practices in music education, we must look to other
disciplines within music and those beyond our disciplines to make cross-curricular connections.
Reaching out, particularly through the ways and means afforded by deterritorialization, can
benefit sharing and cross-pollination of ideas and thinking. We would also benefit to work in
conjunction with non-institutional practices towards integrating the two and bringing the
communities together.

One only needs to consider the advances made in business regarding integrated thinking. The
private market is in many ways ahead of us because it is not bound by the bureaucracies and
strictures of post-secondary curriculum revision. We can work with non-institutionalized music
educators to borrow ideas and co-mingle as we advance our practices and understandings. As we
integrate, we can work towards pluralizing musical transmission. This diversity will help bring
the two closer together as well as serve as a catalyst to promote innovation, progress and
excellence. If the two work in tandem, then we are on our way towards sustainability forging into
a new music teaching and learning ecosystem.
While this model is helpful in advancing notions of online music education, it may not relate to
every single possible context in music education. There are current contexts that this model may
have neglected to acknowledge, and there may be future contexts that cannot currently be
envisioned. It hoped that this model is a beginning step in that direction as we work collectively
to interrogate and better understand potentials in online music education.

FUTURE RESEARCH DIRECTIONS

This research is by no means exhaustive nor comprehensive. It is a preliminary effort to provide
a broad model for online learning in music education. It would behoove the music education
profession if future researchers investigated areas within and beyond this research. These may
include the investigation of particular online ensembles, online private lessons, MOOCS, K12
online contexts, guided artificial intelligences in online music teaching, instrument technique and
guided practice in online contexts, international online music education and multicultural
education in online settings.

If we continue to expand the presence of music teaching and learning in online contexts, new
areas of research will present themselves. It is likely that this will impact the model proposed
herein requiring iterative modification. It is also important that our profession become more
interested in the practices and habits of music learners beyond institutionalized and formalized
contexts.

The ubiquity of music learning in online contexts seems like an area of ever-growing potential in
research. Here I am thinking of online portals, apps and music creating/recreation e-spaces
populated by beginners, amateurs and professionals. By understanding those habits, we might
uncover possibilities for new pedagogical innovations and areas for future research.

CONCLUSION
The Online Deterritorialized Music Education model is sustainable for a variety of reasons. First,
it takes into account both teaching and learning. Often models for education overlook much of
the learners’ role focusing more instead on the teacher. Second, this model considers the contexts
of space, place and temporality. These ingredients are essential to weigh when looking for a way
forward for the future of music education. Last, this model considers collaboration which is an
important factor influencing learning. Notably, this model encapsulates everything in
collaboration which is critical in maintaining a humanized vision for online music education. If
we can learn anything from the past, it is that critics will likely argue that online music learning
lacks the face-to-face elements that are so essential to effective and organic musical human
interaction. While this may be partially true, the ongoing acceptance and normalization of
virtuality and deterritorialization must find ways to maintain collaboration significantly involved
in the discourse.

This online model for music education in post-secondary contexts is framed around the
intersections and along the continua of formal and informal music teaching and learning,
conscious and unconscious knowing and telling, synchronous and asynchronous musical e-
spaces and e-places, currencies and e-collaboration. The model proposed maintains
deterritorialization in online music education as a foundational underpinning. This model is
relatable to various branches of music teaching and learning in post-secondary contexts. As
noted above, this can include music performance, music education, musicology and music theory
among others.

Clearly, we are at the emergent stages of online music education, and merely responding to the
social pressures being exerted by technological innovation and the curiosity of music makers,
learners and teachers globally. Hopefully the music profession will take note of such
developments and work collectively to not only bring this model forward, but find new ways to
bring learners to music and music to learners. This model serves as one small step in that
direction.

We are both witnessing and participating in a paradigm shift propelled by technological

inevitability. One of the greatest benefits of technology is that it will help define humanity to tell
us who we are. We must grow as a species, evolve as musicians and adapt to technological
innovation. As we become more and more technologically oriented, we can figure out newer
ways to help leverage that orientation to our advantage, freeing up our cognitive potential to do
even more human and creative things.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors

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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS

Conscious Knowing/Telling: The conscious knower often functions as a learner and is aware of
his/her knowledge and pursuit/acquisition of knowledge. The conscious teller intends to
communicate knowledge which might lead to understandings.

Currencies: The e-collaborator may be seeking a kind of reward or currency for their
participation. Certainly, money is one kind of currency; however, democratization of online
 music making, learning, and collaboration has led to other kinds of economies. These may
include likes, affirmation, and other forms of peer recognition.

Deterritorialization: The essence or perception of someone not being located in a physical

space.

E-Collaboration: Deterritorialized collaboration in multi-localities mediated by virtual

communication technologies.

E-Spaces and E-Places: E-spaces/e-places function both as spaces and places independently and
simultaneously, and can also be synchronous and asynchronous all at the same time. An e-space
may account for the platform or DAW, for example, while the e-place may account for the web
address or locality of the space. In short, e-spaces are shells and e-places are addresses for those
shells.

Informal/Formal Learning: Together this is a reductive binary that serves as a

conceptualization to delineate between kinds of learning. Formal is intentional, conscious,
teacher-centered, preconceived and planned, curriculum-oriented, scaffoldable, and sequential
and/or linear. Informal is exploratory, unconscious, learner-centered, unplanned, context-
oriented, personalized, and spiraled and/or rhizomatic.

Online: People and ideas that fluidly flow connectively and are mediated by computers and
networks digitally through virtual, deterritorialized e-space/e-places.

Synchronous/Asynchronous: Synchronous refers to events/instances that exist or occur at the

same time. Asynchronous refers to events/instances that do not exist or occur at the same time.

Unconscious Knowing/Telling: The unconscious knower can be a master at what he/she knows
and at the same time not necessarily be aware of what s/he knows. The unconscious teller may be
unaware of any deliberate telling.

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