During a music lesson, participants need to co-ordinate both
their turns at talk and their turns at playing. Verbal and musical
contributions are shaped by their organisation within the turntaking
system. When lessons are conducted remotely by video
conference, these mechanisms are disrupted by the asymmetric
effects of delay on the interaction; in effect a “non-mutual
reality” comprised of two different conversations at each end
of the link. Here we compare detailed case studies of a copresent
and a remote music lesson, in order to show how this
effect arises, and how it impacts conduct during the lesso
