All you need is… a tutorial?

This article examines how adult amateur musicians use video tutorials to learn to play an instrument – the piano and the guitar. Drawing on a questionnaire survey conducted as part of the AppLAB collective project, and on additional interviews, I show that although these resources are widely available and used, their appropriation and usage vary according to individuals’ background. Formal music education during childhood and/or adolescence strongly influences the skills acquired prior to viewing these videos and, consequently, adults’ ability to benefit from them. While tutorials are widely perceived as a learning opportunity and used as such, they cannot compensate for differences in skills and access to musical knowledge.