Documentary Analysis: Growing Into Music By Geoff Baker

There are an immense amount of cultures in the world, that one’s scope on how other cultures communicate, learn, and interact within their own community, especially music, is limited. Understanding and expanding one’s knowledge about other populations teaching techniques, interactions between teacher and student, use of electronics, diffusion of music, and how gender roles relate to the teaching of music, are advantageous. Knowing more in these categories can create opportunities for scholastic discussion with people from different backgrounds, which benefits oneself by being able to emphasize with others. In the documentary, Growing into Music by Geoff Baker talks about different cultures from different parts of the world. A major point

The distinction between the two genders happen multiple countries. For example, in Mali and Guinea the girls sing while the boys play the balafon, a type of xylophone. Djeli Sekou Kouyate, the grandfather of the children performing, stated in the film, “The boys play the balafon, the girls sing the girls, we oblige them to sing. Every female has to sing in the family.” He then was interrupted with the interviewer asking, “But it’s not bad if a man sings?” He then responded with, “It’s quite the opposite, if a man sings it’s even better.” This leads to a personal question of, why is it alright for the boys to cross roles, but the girls seemed to be locked into only singing and not being able to learn the balafon? Although there is a religious aspect to men only playing the balafon, many religious traditions that involve separate roles for each gender have been crossed and broken in other countries. In Rajasthan, girls are not allowed to sing in public, only in private. When they do sing together, it is considered not as talented as the boys in the community. The boys sing and play instruments together in public for the community. The more experienced boys sing with the less experienced, causing the younger boys to grasp the traditions and melodies of their culture. Americans might have a tough time clutching onto the idea of gender bias in music. The lines continue to blur in traditional orchestra settings as more women play “male” instruments and vice versa. Having a defined separation between the two is becoming a foreign idea to