Welcome to my blog – this is such a nice surprise! I wasn’t really expecting anyone to be reading this! Thank you for your interesting comments regarding the VC as a community of practice. I think the CoP idea is really helpful in trying to tease out what is going on here. As far as history goes I expect every CoP has to start somewhere and infact some of the participants have been engaged in all three VC productions. Is the birth of a CoP? I agree with joint enterprise and shared repertoire – well bending the definition a little they were singing the same repertoire Seriously though as choristers and singers they have a shared vocabulary and ways of approaching their practice.

Is the VC a varient of the larger ‘choristers and singers’ CoP where pratcices have morphed to adapt to the virtual environment?

Thanks again – Geraldine

Hi Geraldine – I’m wondering whether you are making the distinction here between community and community of practice. If the latter then in Wenger’s terms, the Virtual Choir definitely had a shared domain and shared practice and in that sense had the makings of a community of practice. We would then need to consider whether there was mutual engagement (I’m not sure about this, given that they all made their contributions without collaboration), joint enterprise (yes I think so) and shared repertoire (I’m not sure that they were together long enough for this – did they share a history?).

It’s interesting to consider the Virtual Choir through a communities of practice lens.

If they all disbanded after the event, then I don’t think they have a community of practice.

Thanks for your thought provoking post.