Interview-based case studies, involving two institutions, four professors and 11 music teacher trainees were conducted in order to investigate the preconditions for deep learning in the subject of higher music education called "musikdidaktik". Analysis was based on the "didaktiktriangle" which is a theoretical model that suggests the relations of the professor, trainee and the selected content as being at the core of any educational endeavour. The model helps to frame the debate about the quality of teaching and learning by highlighting the trainees' learning as relational. Professors as well as trainees located preconditions for deep learning to relations within the didaktik triangle. Furthermore, it became apparent how those preconditions were connected to the institutional culture within which the triangle relations were played out. It is suggested that deep learning in "musikdidaktik" was regulated by how the teaching forms and the selected educational content gave space for trainees' learning styles, strategies and approaches. Furthermore, the learning was affected by the "musikdidaktik" subject's low status within the institutional culture and its external relations to the trainees' practical teaching training.