Applying studies on conversational storytelling, cognitive processes, and instructional discourse, this study investigates how music storytelling is used to teach piano performances in online video tutorial lessons, elucidating how piano instructors transform written musical symbols into spoken verbal language and storify non-program music. It reveals how the metaphoric process of music storytelling is effectively used to enhance students’ artistic performing skills and musicality by contextualizing and personifying abstract musical notations. Further, it sheds light on how the ubiquitous practice of storytelling is strategically utilized through the exploitation of cognitive transformations of different semiotic systems to enhance learning performances and skills.
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