From “Push the Keys” to “Touch the Screen”? Tracing the Competition of Things in Music

On the Sociomateriality of Introducing the GarageBand App into School Music

Abstract

This article explores the introduction of iPads in music lessons at a secondary school from a sociomaterial perspective. Based on several years of accompanying, the study draws on situational analysis to show how digital technologies – in particular the app GarageBand – are becoming embedded in existing subject cultures, thing orders, and pedagogical routines. The analysis reveals how the digitization process in the music classroom often fails due to old things, familiar routines, and subject-specific ideologies, such a clavocentrism and a liveness norm. At the same time, an alternative  understanding of music learning is introduced. It adds sound work in the form of exploratory, self-directed creation and production of precise recordings to the craftsmanship of reproduction and selfconquest in stage performances. The research results are discussed in the light of the debate on digitization in schools and music education.