World music at WSU

When the phrase ‘world culture’ comes up, perhaps the first response may be ‘foreign language.’ And close after that, students may think of the music each of these cultures create. There is a class, Music of World Cultures 1040, taught by Dr. David Akombo, offered to Weber State University students.
“If there is a student at Weber State who has not taken this class, they had better try and take it as soon as possible,” Akombo said. “It’s one of the most exciting classes on campus.”
In his class, Akombo encourages students to remain open-minded while appreciating and enjoying music different from what they hear day to day.
“We do music of Japan, music of India, music of China, music of South America, music of Africa. It’s really an eclectic fusion of a survey of world cultures through music. And we also include ethnic America, music like jazz or hip hop or blues, some Native American music for example, or anything outside of mainstream classical music is what we deal with in this class.”
Part of the classwork is to attend a cultural concert and write a report on it detailing from which country the performer(s) came, how the audience responded and how it made the student feel.
“I went to a traditional Irish concert and I wouldn’t have done that outside of this class, but I really enjoyed it,” art major and student of Professor Akombo, Kyle Wilcox, said.
Wilcox also likes how Dr. Akombo teaches the class.
“He’s a very energetic teacher. He’s pretty funny, and I enjoy learning about other cultures and their music.”
Galen Sellers, an information systems technology (IST) major, agrees and goes on to say that he likes “the interaction Dr. Akombo has. So many professors just lecture, but he involves us in the learning process. And he seems very interested in his subject matter.”
Dr. Akombo recommends students take this class because “there’s no better time than now to understand how the global cultures function. We have insecurity in the entire globe, we have terrorism, and we have misunderstandings from technology, education, and all this because people don’t understand each other. Through subjects like music, when we study the cultures of other people and see why they’re singing the songs they’re singing, we can attempt to understand them a lot better. We need to know what they’re singing about, we need to know why they’re singing the way they’re singing, we need to know what kind of music they are producing and how that music makes them different from who we are, and why are we also different from them. So any subject that can make students understand this global phenomenon, I think it’s worth it and music is a really good tool because it’s fun, it’s exciting, students get to listen, enjoy, dance, and swim in the water of global cultures and experience it.”
As an effect of not having world cultural classes on the required curriculum, many Americans cannot correctly identify many of the countries in the world.   
“World music would be a nice opportunity for students to investigate, and get to understand other cultures because music is really embedded in other cultures as a functional tool, as opposed to something that is played on the side for entertainment,” Akombo said. “Through this class students are able to see how important music is in the lives of other people, in other cultures, and how it functions in their society.”