Featured Publication: Becoming a YouTube Musician: How People Learn, Create, and Connect Online
Publication Title
Becoming a YouTube Musician: How People Learn, Create, and Connect Online
Author
Publisher
Routledge
Publication Date
July 2025
About the Book
YouTube has become a highly influential space for music making and learning. Becoming a YouTube Musician: How People Learn, Create, and Connect Online explores how YouTube creators and viewers are using digital video to create and consume music, develop online communities, and engage in formal, informal, and experimental music learning. Drawing on 26 case studies, Cayari challenges music educators to incorporate the learning, creative, and social practices of online musicians into their classrooms by helping students learn to participate in an online music system like YouTube.
About the Author
Christopher Cayari is an associate professor of Music at Purdue University with a courtesy appointment in Curriculum & Instruction at the College of Education and an affiliation with the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program in the School of Interdisciplinary studies. He holds a Ph.D. and M.M.E. in Music Education from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a bachelor’s degree in music education from Trinity Christian College in Palos Heights, IL. Previously, he was the Director-Producer for Wisconsin Singers and an Associate Lecturer at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Christopher’s research focuses on mediated musical performance, YouTube, informal music learning, virtual communities, video games, and online identity. His secondary research agenda addresses marginalized voices in music education, specifically LGBTQIA+ individuals and Asian Americans. His research received the Outstanding Dissertation Award 2015 from the Council of Research in Music Education and has recently appeared in International Journal of Education and the Arts, International Journal of Music Education, Oxford Handbooks, Bloomsbury Handbooks, Music Education Research, Tech Trends, General Music Today, and the International Journal of Community Music. Christopher has presented across the United States and internationally in Canada, China, Philippines, Australia, Norway, and the United Kingdom.
He teaches Music for the Elementary Classroom at Purdue and has developed partnerships with local elementary schools to help his students see musical education environments. He also has worked with the Tippecanoe Arts Federation to teach ukulele to local youth. He is an avid YouTube video creator. Christopher regularly publishes online performances, tutorials, and vlogs. He enjoys collaborating with his students to make user-generated content for YouTube, and his students have virtually performed with other musical collaborators from across the US and abroad. He is also the vocal coach for the American Music Repertory Ensemble, a Purdue Jazz Band.