Music analysis down the (You) tube? Exploring the potential of cross-media listening for the music classroom

School students' immersion in a rich entertainment media environment has implications for classroom listening. Increasing interaction among media, design, games, communications and arts fields has led to a growing trend in the creative alignment of music and moving image. Video sharing sites such as YouTube are assisting in the proliferation and dissemination of such material, and are a source for the stimulation of creative and artistic activity from which music education can benefit. In this article I explore some of the possibilities of cross-media listening, which considers music from (variously) aural, visual, spatial and kinaesthetic orientations. Cross-media listening centres on visual musical works, pieces from moving image genres that are structured according to the codes, materials, devices and processes of music. Grounded in sound pedagogical principles and expounded through a series of analyses, cross-media listening advocates a reintegrated, multi-domain approach to encountering music in educational settings.