During a music lesson, participants need to co-ordinate boththeir turns at talk and their turns at playing. Verbal and musicalcontributions are shaped by their organisation within the turn-taking system. When lessons are conducted remotely by videoconference, these mechanisms are disrupted by the asymmet-ric effects of delay on the interaction; in effect a “non-mutualreality” comprised of two different conversations at each endof the link. Here we compare detailed case studies of a co-present and a remote music lesson, in order to show how thiseffect arises, and how it impacts conduct during the lesson.
