American family of musicians.
(2) Seeger, Ruth (Porter) Crawford.
ANN M. PESCATELLO (1, 5), DAVE LAING (3), JUDITH ROSEN (4), GREGORY F. BARZ (6)
(b Mexico City, 14 Dec 1886; d Bridgewater, CT, 7 Feb 1979). Musicologist, composer, conductor, critic and musical philosopher. His initial interest was in composition and conducting, and he joined numerous young American composers in Europe in the years immediately following his graduation from Harvard (1908). He spent a season (1910–11) as a conductor at the Cologne Opera before returning to the USA as a composer and chairman of the department of music at the University of California, Berkeley (1912–19), where he gave the first American courses in musicology in 1916. Several of his compositions were destroyed in the Berkeley fire (1923). Subsequently he was a lecturer and instructor at the Institute of Musical Art, New York (1921–33), the forerunner of the Juilliard School, and lecturer at the New School for Social Research (1931–5), where, with Henry Cowell, he taught the first courses in ethnomusicology given in the USA (1931). Concurrently he was active in the organization and development of the Composers Collective and other programmes devoted to the growth and dissemination of American composition. One of his outstanding students, Ruth Crawford, later became his second wife. His own compositions written at this time include a number of songs, with piano or orchestral accompaniment, as well as many instrumental works. He also worked as a music critic for several American newspapers and journals, including the Daily Worker, for which he wrote under the pseudonym Carl Sand.
In 1935 Seeger moved to Washington, DC, where he served as music technical adviser in Roosevelt’s Resettlement Administration (1935–7), deputy director of the Federal Music Project of Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration (1937–41), and chief of the music division of the Pan-American Union (1941–53). Under his energetic and far-sighted supervision, much fieldwork was done in North and Latin America, followed by many publications and recordings. He returned to university teaching, as research musicologist at the Institute of Ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles (1960–70), and lecturer at various New England universities, including Brown, Harvard and Yale. He was a founder (and chairman, 1930–34) of the New York Musicological Society, reorganized with his help in 1934 as the American Musicological Society (of which he was president in 1945–6), as well as the American Society for Comparative Musicology (president, 1935), the Society for Ethnomusicology (president, 1960–61; honorary president from 1972), the International Society for Music Educators, the College Music Society and the International Music Council; he was also vice-president of the Gesellschaft für Vergleichende Musikwissenschaft (1934–6).
Seeger concentrated on general ethnomusicology and its theory, in which he had considerable influence as a largely prescriptive and philosophical writer. He pointed out that the evaluation of all music in terms of Western art music is a cultural anachronism, and emphasized that in much non-Western music the performer, rather than a ‘composer’, is the main creator or re-creator. In his ‘Preface to the Critique of Music’ (1963) he criticized the habit of assessing both art and folk music by way of value judgments in the absence of an objective descriptive method, and in ‘The Music Process’ (1966) he approached the fundamental difficulty of describing music through the distorting medium of speech. The same essay set out his strictures on classifying peoples according to social strata, and on the limitations of the expression ‘national music’. In the 1930s he became interested in the development of machines for music analysis, and he considered the value of automatic music writing (using ‘Seeger melographs’) as an aid to the objective perception and understanding of unfamiliar music. His lifelong interest in American folk music has been continued in his children’s work; he recorded and, with his second wife, Ruth Crawford, transcribed and edited American folksongs, and with Ruth, and John and Alan Lomax he produced a major study of American folk music, Folk Song:USA (New York, 1947/R, 2/1975).
The freshness of Seeger’s thinking, his constant concern for the balance between society and the individual, and the extent and variety of his work have made an outstanding impact on both American and international attitudes to music and its place in society.
with E.G. Stricklen: Outline of a Course in Harmonic Structure and Simple Musical Invention (Berkeley, 1913, 2/1916 by E.G. Stricklen as Harmonic Structure and Elementary Composition)
‘Music in the American University’, Educational Review, lxvi (1923), 95–9
‘On Dissonant Counterpoint’, MM, vii/4 (1930), 25–31
‘Grassroots for American Music’, MM, xvi/3 (1938), 143–9
‘The Importance to Cultural Understanding of Folk and Popular Music’, Conference on Inter-American Relations in the Field of Music: Washington 1939 [last item, 10pp.]
‘Systematic and Historical Orientations in Musicology’, AcM, xi (1939), 121–8
‘Contrapuntal Style in the Three-Voice Shape-Note Hymns’, MQ, xxvi (1940), 483–93
‘Folk Music as a Source of Social History’, The Cultural Approach to History, ed. C.F. Ware (New York, 1940), 316–23
Music as Recreation (Washington, 1940)
‘Music and Government: Field for an Applied Musicology’, PAMS 1944, 11–20
‘Music in the Americas’, Bulletin of the Pan American Union, lxxix (1945), 26–8, 149–52, 290–93, 341–4, 521–5
‘The Arts in International Relations’, JAMS, ii (1949), 36–43
‘Professionalism and Amateurism in the Study of Folk Music’, Journal of American Folklore, lxii (1949), 107–13; repr. in The Critics and the Ballad, ed. M. Leach and T.P. Coffin (Carbondale, IL, 1961), 151–60
‘Music and Musicology in the New World’, HMYB, vi (1949–50), 36–56
‘Systematic Musicology: Viewpoints, Orientations and Methods’, JAMS, iv (1951), 240–48
‘Music and Society: some New World Evidence of their Relationship’, Latin-American Fine Arts: Austin 1951 [Latin-American Studies, xiii (1952)], 84–97; rev. version pubd separately (Washington DC, 1952)
‘Preface to the Description of a Music’, IMSCR V: Utrecht 1952, 360–70
‘Folk Music in the Schools of a Highly Industrialized Society’, JIFMC, v (1953), 40–44
‘Music and Class Structure in the United States’, American Quarterly, ix (1957), 281–94
‘Toward a Universal Music Sound-Writing for Musicology’, JIFMC, ix (1957), 63–6
‘The Appalachian Dulcimer’, Journal of American Folklore, lxxi (1958), 40–51
‘Prescriptive and Descriptive Music-Writing’, MQ, xliv (1958), 184–95
‘Singing Style’, Western Folklore, xvii (1958), 3–11
‘On the Moods of a Music Logic’, JAMS, xiii (1960), 224–61
‘The Cultivation of Various European Traditions in the Americas’, IMSCR VIII: New York 1961, i, 364–75
‘Semantic, Logical and Political Considerations bearing upon Research in Ethnomusicology’, EthM, v (1961), 77–80
‘Introduction’, ‘Preface to the Critique of Music’, Conferencia interamericana de etnomusicologia I: Cartagena, Colombia 1963, 9–11; 39–63; ‘Preface’ pubd separately as Inter-American Music Bulletin, no.49 (1965)
‘Tradition and the (North) American Composer: a Contribution to the Ethnomusicology of the Western World’, Music in the Americas: Bloomington, IN, 1965, 195–212
‘The Folkness of the Non-Folk vs. the Non-Folkness of the Folk’, Folklore and Society: Essays in Honor of Benj. A. Botkin, ed. B. Jackson (Hatboro, PA, 1966), 1–9
‘The Music Process as a Function in a Context of Functions’, YIAMR, ii (1966), 1–36
‘Versions and Variants of the Tunes of “Barbara Allen” in the Archive of American Folk Song in the Library of Congress: with Comments on the Words by Ed Cray’, Selected Reports, i/1 (1966), 120–67
‘Factorial Analysis of the Song as an Approach to the Formation of a Unitary Field Theory’, JIFMC, xx (1968), 33–9
‘On the Formational Apparatus of the Music Compositional Process’, EthM, xiii (1969), 230–47
‘Toward a Unitary Field Theory for Musicology’, Selected Reports, i/3 (1970), 171–210
‘Reflections upon a Given Topic: Music in Universal Perspective’, EthM, xv (1971), 385–98
‘World Musics in American Schools: A challenge to be met’, Music Educators Journal, lix/2 (1972–3), 107–11
‘In memoriam: Carl Ruggles’, PNM, x/2 (1971–2), 171–4
‘Tractatus Esthetico-semioticus’, Current Thought in Musicology, ed. J.W. Grubbs (Austin, 1976)
ed. with B. Wade: Essays for a Humanist: an Offering to Klaus Wachsmann (New York, 1977) [incl. ‘Sources of Evidence and Criteria for Judgment in the Critique of Music’, 261–76]
Studies in Musicology, 1935–75 (Berkeley, 1977)
with M. Valiant: ‘Journal of a Field Representative’, EthM, xxiv (1980), 169–210
ed. A.M. Pescatello: Studies in Musicology II, 1929–1979 (Berkeley, 1994)
H. Cowell: ‘Charles Seeger’, American Composers on American Music (Stanford, CA, 1933/R), 119–24
‘Charles Seeger: Selective Bibliography, 1923–1966’, YIAMR, ii (1966), 37–42
Obituary, MQ, lxv (1979), 305–7
D.K. Dunaway: ‘Charles Seeger and Carl Sands: the Composers' Collective Years’, EthM, xxiv (1980), 159–68
A.M. Pescatello: Charles Seeger: a Life in American Music (Pittsburgh, 1992)
M. McCarthy: ‘On “American Music for American Children”: the Contribution of Charles L. Seeger’, JRME, xliii (1995), 270–87
See Crawford, Ruth.
(b New York, 3 May 1919). American folksinger, banjo player and songwriter, son of (1) Charles (Louis) Seeger. As a teenager he assisted the folksong collector J.A. Lomax, then joined the Alamanac Singers, so meeting Woody Guthrie, Lee Hays and others. During the early 1950s he recorded such hit records as Kisses Sweeter than Wine, Wimoweh and So long, it’s been good to know you with the vocal quartet the Weavers. Following his appearance before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, he was blacklisted by concert halls and broadcasters. In the 1960s Seeger further established his pivotal role in the American folk revival, promoting its ideals and, through concerts and recordings, encouraging others to sing and play. He founded the Newport Folk Festival, published tutors for the banjo and 12-string guitar and has contributed regularly to the magazine Sing Out! since 1954.
As a songwriter, Seeger was adept at making musical settings for works as diverse as a section of Ecclesiastes (Turn, Turn, Turn), Jose Marti’s Guantanamera and The Bells of Rhymney by the Welsh poet Idris Davies. The best known of his own compositions include the anti-war song Where have all the flowers gone?, If I had a Hammer (written with Hays), Last Train to Nuremberg and Waist Deep in the Big Muddy.
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ed. with W. Guthrie: The People’s Songbook (New York, 1948) |
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ed.: The Carolers’ Songbag (New York, 1952) |
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ed.: American Favorite Ballads (New York, 1961) |
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The Goofing Off Suite (New York, 1961) |
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The Bells of Rhymney (New York, 1964) |
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Bits and Pieces (New York, 1965) |
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transcr. and ed.: Hard Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People, comp. A. Lomax (New York, 1967) [notes by W. Guthrie] |
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Oh Had I a Golden Thread (New York, 1968) |
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Pete Seeger on Record (New York, 1971) |
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Everybody Says Freedom, with B. Reisner (New York, 1989) |
How to Play the 5-String Banjo (New York, 1948, 3/1962)
The 12-String Guitar as Played by Leadbelly: an Instruction Manual, with J. Lester (New York, 1965)
The Incompleat Folksinger (New York, 1972/R)
Where have all the Flowers Gone? (New York,1993)
Many articles in Sing Out!
M. Muns: ‘Pete Seeger: an Appreciation’, Sing Out!, xi/1 (1961), 4–5
P. Lyon: ‘The Ballad of Pete Seeger’, The American Folk Scene: Dimensions of the Folksong Revival, ed. D.A. De Turk and A. Poulin (New York, 1967), 203–15
D.K. Dunaway: How Can I Keep from Singing: Pete Seeger (New York, 1981)
R. Reuss: American Folklore and Left-Wing Politics (Urbana, IL, 1986)
(b New York, 15 Aug 1933). Folksinger and instrumentalist, son of (1) Charles Louis Seeger and Ruth Crawford. He received no formal instruction in music, but learned to play a number of folk instruments (including the fiddle, guitar, five-string banjo, autoharp, and jew's harp) from observing and imitating first other members of his family and then traditional musicians. Beginning in the early 1950s he sought to document folk music traditions of the mountains of the Southeast through field recordings and his own playing; he was responsible for the first recording of the guitarist and songwriter Elizabeth Cotten, and his own early recording of banjo playing in the style of Earl Scruggs is regarded as a classic in its field. With John Cohen and Tom Paley in 1958 he founded the New Lost City Ramblers, a pioneering traditional music group, and through it exerted a strong influence on the string-band revival that began in the 1960s; in 1968 he organized the Strange Creek Singers. He served on several boards of directors, including those of the Newport Folk Foundation (1964–70), the John Edwards Memorial Foundation at UCLA (1962–), and the Southern Folk Cultural Revival Project, Atlanta and Nashville (1973–86). He has received several NEA grants for performance, a Smithsonian Institution Visiting Scholar Research Fellowship (1983), and a Guggenheim Fellowship (1984). Throughout his career he has promoted an authentic folksong style and sound, by means of concerts, film and video documentaries and over 40 recordings and has shown himself committed to the perpetuation of the traditional music and culture of rural America.
J. Hatlo: ‘‘Mike Seeger: Cherishing his Music and its Traditions,’’ Frets, 1/i (1979), 12
D. Spottswood: ‘Mike Seeger’, Bluegrass Unlimited, xix/11 (1985), 59–64
(b New York, 17 June 1935). Folksinger, song collector and songwriter, daughter of (1) Charles (Louis) Seeger. As a child she had formal training in both classical and folk music, and at Radcliffe College she studied music and began performing folksongs publicly. After studies and travels throughout Europe (1955–6) and China, she moved to Britain in 1956, becoming a British subject in 1959. As a solo performer and with her husband, Ewan MacColl [James Henry Miller] (b Auchterarder, Perthshire, 25 Jan 1915), she has helped lead the British folk music revival, extending traditional styles to modern media. Both separately and together they have performed in concerts, festivals and folk clubs, made many records and written music (for radio, films and television) and books.
ed. with E. MacColl: Travellers’ Songs from England and Scotland (London and Knoxville, TN, 1977)
ed. with E. MacColl: Shellback: Reminiscences of Ben Bright, Mariner (Oxford, c1980)
with E. MacColl: Till Doomsday in the Afternoon: the Folklore of Scots Travellers, the Stewarts of Blairgowrie (Manchester, 1986)
(b New York, 29 May 1945). American ethnomusicologist, grandson of (1) Charles (Louis) Seeger. He was educated at Harvard University (BA 1967), studying with Albert Lord, and at the University of Chicago, where he earned the MA (1970) and the PhD in anthropology, with a dissertation on social organization of the Suyá (1974), under Victor Turner and Terence Turner. From 1975 to 1982 he was a member of the department of anthropology at the Museu Nacional, Rio de Janeiro and an occasional professor at the Conservatório Brasileiro de Música (1979–82). In 1982 he became associate professor in the department of anthropology at Indiana University, where he also served as the director of the Archives of Traditional Music. In 1988 he became the curator and director of the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The main focus of his work has been the study of social processes influenced by and influencing musical performance, principally among Brazilian Indians. Other areas of interest have included the recording industry, archiving practices for audio and video, and anthropological approaches to music. He has served as president of the Society for Ethnomusicology (1991–3) and the Commisăo Pro-Indio in Rio de Janeiro (1978–80). He has been a member of the executive board of the International Council for Traditional Music (1991–7), the American Institute of Indian Studies Ethnomusicology Committee (1986–) and the advisory board of the Traditional Music Archives, Sudan (1994–). In 1983 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science.
Nature and Culture and their Transformations in the Cosmoloty and Social Organization of the Suyá, a Ge-Speaking Tribe of Central Brazil (diss., Chicago U., 1974)
‘The Meaning of Suyá Body Ornaments: a Suyá Example’, Ethnology, xiv/3 (1975), 211–24
‘What can we learn when they sing? Vocal Genres of the Suyá Indians of Central Brazil’, EthM, xxiii (1979), 373–94
Os índios e nos: estudos sobre sociedades tribais brasileiras (Rio de Janeiro, 1980)
‘Sing for your Sister: the Structure and Performance of Suyá Akia’, The Ethnography of Musical Performance, ed. N. McLeod and M. Herndon (Norwood, PA, 1980), 7–43; repr. in A Century of Ethnomusicological Thought, ed. K. Kaufman Shelemay (New York, 1990), 269–304
Nature and Society in Central Brazil: the Suyá Indians of Mato Grosso (Cambridge, MA, 1981)
‘The Role of Sound Archives in Ethnomusicology Today’, EthM, xxx (1986), 261–76
ed., with L.M. Speer: Early Field Recordings: a Catalogue of the Cylinder Collection at the Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music (Bloomington, IN, 1987)
‘The Indiana University Archives of Traditional Music’, World of Music, xxix/3 (1987), 95–8
Why Suyá Sing: a Musical Anthropology of an Amazonian People (Cambridge, 1987)
‘Styles of Music Ethnography’, Comparative Musicology and Anthropology of Music, ed. B. Nettl and P.V. Bohlman (Chicago, 1991), 342–55
‘When Music Makes History’, Ethnomusicology and Modern Music History, ed. S. Blum, P.V. Bohlman and D. Neuman (Urbana, IL, 1991), 23–34
‘Ethnomusicology and Music Law’, EthM, xxxvi (1992), 345–60
‘Whoever we are Today, we can Sing you a Song about it’, Music and Black Ethnicity: the Caribbean and South America, ed. G. Béhague (New Brunswick, NJ, 1994), 1–16
‘Singing the Strangers' Songs: Brazilian Indians and Music of Portuguese Derivation in the 20th Century’, Portugal and the World: the Encounter of Cultures in Music, ed. S.E.S. Castelo-Branco (Lisbon, 1997), 475–95