Anthony Seeger is a Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the heir to the great musical legacy of the Seeger family – among other notables, his grandfather Charles Seeger was a musicologist and his uncle Pete Seeger was an influential folk singer and member of The Weavers. Seeger is a specialist in the music of the Suyá people of central Brazil, as well as of protest and struggle music, and has written widely in these and other fields. He is also a trained music archivist, and runs the music archive facility at University of California, Los Angeles. From 1988 to 2000, he was Director of Smithsonian Folkways Recordings at the Smithsonian Institute.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, speaks at length about his chosen field and what he has learned about music and culture in the course of his career. He recounts his time living among the Suyá Indians of Central Brazil and the specific ways in which that society uses music to order the rhythm of their lives, and then widens the discussion to cover some of the larger trends in Western music over the past century – for example, how recording technology transformed how music is written, experienced, and commoditized. He also discusses some of the unique challenges of being a musicologist – such as how to preserve recorded music forever, how to successfully understand cultural context when studying music, and how the study of a people’s music can change that music.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses why cultural context is critical for ethnomusicology, and for any musician who really wants to get inside the particular genre they play.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses his efforts to separate music as culture from music as a commodity to purchase – and why he had to go all the way to the Brazilian outback to do this. He then goes on to discuss the 20th-century struggle between live musicians and the spread of the jukebox to place this tension in historical perspective.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses some books on ethnomusicology and the music business, that are of interest both to students and people hoping to broaden their understanding of the music business and the world of music in general.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses whether more people, in general, participated in making music of any kind in past centuries, or whether more do today.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, reassures parents about the myriad of possibilities that are open to students of music, and reminds them that even if what their child is doing sounds terrible to them, it still might be the sound that changes the world.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses the main focus of his career - the music of the Suyá Indians of Central Brazil . He gives a quick but fascinating lesson in their musical folkways, the central role that music plays in their culture and society, how the Suyá use music to structure their sense of time, their instrumentation and use of voice, the place that music education plays in the raising of their children, and their reluctance to adopt the instrumentation or techniques of other cultures even as they gladly appropriate their songs. In addition, he sings one of the songs the Suyá perform during rainy season.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, shares his thoughts on the benefits of learning the music of cultures other than your own, and the special part that ethnomusicologists play in bringing new music to Western culture.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, shares why he chose his field, and the central role that his musical family played in this choice. He also speaks briefly about his current activities at University of California, Los Angeles.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses the tradition of Western Classical music and the opportunities for fusion that exist between Classical and musical traditions, as well as how this fusion works in practice.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, talks about the challenges of preserving audio recordings in a world where recording formats are always changing, and the storage media are always becoming more fragile and more specialized. He also discusses the tight relationship between audio archives and the field of ethnomusicology.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, gives a musicologist’s and industry veteran’s (as founder of Smithsonian Folkways) view of why music students should understand the industry that makes the music they study, for both academic and business reasons.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses the changes that recording media have wrought on the face of Western music – from the rise of the three-minute song and crooner-style singing, to the flattening out of differences in orchestral styles from country to country, as well as the opportunity for people to be exposed to music they never otherwise would have heard.
Anthony Seeger, Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles, discusses the long view of how the music industry has changed – from the player piano to recording software on your laptop, and how these changes have in turn affected people’s relationship with music.
