The joys of learning together, instead of telling each other things

I have embarked on an intriguing education project with my clever little daughter. 

I am always on the lookout for ways to flip the traditional script of adults educating children, mainly because I don’t know particularly much, and the longer I live, the less certain I become about anything.

Far better for the two of us to discover new things together and to share our impressions. 

We discovered a way to do this through a type of musical world tour, which we have launched using the website rateyourmusic.com and Liso’s inflatable globe. 

Rate Your Music is a collaborative database where users rate all kinds of music from around the world.

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These ratings – out of five stars – are then aggregated, to provide an introduction to new music, as well as a general assessment of how good it is. 

One of the subdirectories on the site therefore allows one to browse the top-rated album from every individual country in the world.

“Favorite Album From Every Country In The World”, it’s called, and it has indeed been an education for me and my nine-year-old housemate. 

It works like this.

We scroll down to the next country in our list – currently we’re in the Gs, so it’s the album Dub Me Crazy!! by Mad Professor, from Guyana. Then I find the album on my streaming service, push play, and Liso has to find Guyana on the blow-up globe. 

I provide what location clues I can.

“I think Guyana is in the Caribbean. Or maybe South America. Or maybe Africa. Although the music does sound Caribbean. This is a type of dub reggae music.” 

Beyond that, we’re both learning. 

More than 90% of the music we discover, I have never heard before. So, neither of our opinions carries more weight than the other’s.

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We have to research the style of music, the artist, and ultimately gain some kind of idea why this one, particularly, is the most liked album from that country. 

We’ve found some fascinating nuggets along the way.

Folk heroes like Victor Jara of Chile, and Facundo Cabral of Argentina, both assassinated for the outspoken honesty of their work.

Cambodian pop by the likes of Sinn Sisamouth, which is today only available in helium-voiced, speeded-up versions, because in the Seventies it was always dubbed at higher speed, in order to fit more music on every pirate cassette tape.

The music of pioneer Romani guitarist Django Reinhardt, who was so authentically poor, he lost the use of two of his fingers when his gypsy caravan caught fire.

These are simply three of the discoveries we have stumbled upon. The real learnings have come from the magical but real “sense” of some countries, which we have gained through listening to their music. 

Often, the music has been folk music, played on the instruments peculiar to each country, or produced simply by clapping, dancing and singing – for instance the album AKA Pygmy Music, from the Central African Republic.

The experience has been a privilege, and the learnings surreal and hard to put into words.

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But in the absence of the funding for an around-the-world holiday, our musical journey has given us that special feeling that our eyes are being opened through the power of travel.

Like with travel, our musical adventure has allowed us to see and hear South Africa with fresh ears. Home now sounds different.

Our music – jazz, amapiano, afropop – now sounds singular and uncommon again. We’ve gained a new appreciation for our local tastes. 

We now know what Albanian mountain folk music sounds like. Not everyone can say that! 

Ultimately, it’s a fun way of discovery. A learning tool.

We’ve decided it’s more fun learning together instead of telling each other things. There’s quite enough of that.

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