Music is part of our cultural identity, but who owns it? Music academic Anthony Seeger teases out the tangled issues with Siobhán Long

'Our" music. What does that mean? Who owns Irish traditional music? Where does it belong? In some dusty repository where it can be bottled in aspic for the delectation of future generations? In smoke-free snugs for those who want an aural accompaniment to their libations? The question of music ownership doesn't just boil down to matters of copyright, as anyone who's entered the ring to go a few rounds with the many-headed "guardians" of our cultural identity will attest. And as we grapple with the complexities of a rapidly-evolving multicultural society, the question of who or what might lay claim to our musical heritage is a timely one.

Prof Anthony Seeger is a man well-versed in the shadow-boxing world where cultures collide. He is endowed with a genetic lineage that could hardly have allowed him to coast through life unannounced (his grandfather was musicologist Charles Seeger; his uncle Pete was a loyal compadre of Woody Guthrie, a staunch opponent of McCarthyism and an undisputed folk icon in his own right; his uncle Mike was a member of the New Lost City Ramblers; and his aunt Peggy is still a mean folk singer). Seeger lost little time in immersing himself in what some might consider the esoteric field of ethnomusicology, although his primary college degree was in anthropology.

"I was born into a very musical family," he says, "so music was always at the centre of what I was interested in. In college, I decided that I didn't want to be a performer, though. I wanted to study music, and I decided that the best way to do it was through anthropology.

Growing up in the 1950s with one uncle blacklisted and another one having to leave the country [Charles, a radio astronomer also blacklisted by McCarthy], and my father storming in telling me never to play certain songs with a window open, I figured that music was obviously an integral part of social life."

Ethnomusicology as a specialist field wasn't well established back in the 1970s when Seeger was a college student. And around these parts, it's still something of an unknown quantity, weighed-down, undoubtedly, by its cumbersome title.

SEEGER IS QUICK to unpick the complexity of his chosen subject, however. "Ethnomusicology, in my mind, is the study of all of the music of all of the peoples in the world," he offers, with the kind of clarity that's all too rarely a feature of Irish academics. "One of the reasons that the word is so cumbersome is because 'musicology' focused entirely on European concert music, and pretty much didn't think or theorise about anything else. So ethnomusicology grew up as a field, related to musicology on the one hand, and to anthropology on the other."

Seeger is addressing a symposium at the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance in the University of Limerick next week, on the subject of A National Ethnomusicology. The symposium, hosted by the International Council for Traditional Music, promises to spark a lively debate on the question of our musical heritage.

Micheál Ó Suilleabháin, director of the Irish World Academy of Music and Dance, sees Seeger's keynote address as a timely challenge to musicians, academics and punters alike to re-evaluate their preconceptions about the music they've grown up with. Cage-rattling is an activity Ó Suilleabháin is particularly familiar with, as is casting a critical ear over the sacred cows of the tradition, as he did in his contributions to the now infamous TV series, River of Sound.

"Ethnomusicology at its best is an action of cultural subversion," he suggests. "In an Irish context it provides a vital aerial view which, like a world weather report, lets us see the global context of our cultural weather. Irish ethnomusicology is the meteorology of our cultural sound."

Regardless of who is studying music, Seeger insists that the question of when the dancer becomes the dance is still as relevant as it was to Yeats during Ireland's Celtic twilight. It is, he suggests, impossible for the observer to be disengaged from the greater cultural and political contexts in which the music exists. His own experiences working with the Suyá Indians in Brazil bears this out, although he is quick to note that not all ethnomusicologists would subscribe to his view.

"It's possible to study the sounds, scales and melodies of a community and not be at all concerned about how they are used within a community, or what they mean," he says, "and also without being concerned about what the role of the researcher is. My position is that you shouldn't [disregard the role of the researcher], because the why or the how of the music is always a social question."

Studying a remote Brazilian Indian society in the state of Matto Grosso back in the 1970s, Seeger was keen to share his Anglo-American music tradition with them, but he could not have predicted the political fallout of his work, which impacted on the Suyá long after his departure.

As well as co-producing a record with them, his studies of their music were used in court as key evidence of the group's cultural distinctiveness and identity.

"I'd been working in indigenous politics for some time, and I had been president of the Brazilian Indian Rights Commission," he recounts. "So the books that I had written and the collections I'd made were used in the court case to demonstrate that the claim [of the Suyá] to their land was valid, because the Brazilians wouldn't accept just their word. They insisted on outside evidence, and my research was one of the things that enabled the Suyá to re-acquire land that had been lost in the 1950s."

Seeger is a master of many trades. A mean banjo player, he's also a former curator of the Smithsonian Institution's Folkways collection, and so he brings a particular bird's eye view to his Irish visit, but he's loath to pass judgment on the challenges that face traditional Irish music. One thing he's unequivocal about though, is the question of ownership.

'I USUALLY LEAVE the question of who owns the music to the musicians. It seems to me that they're the ones who are making the art, and they ought to feel that they can do whatever they feel is important. Some of them will want to continue older traditions, and they should be documented and archived so that the children of the people who decided that they didn't want to learn them can go back and find them again.

"On the other hand, I'm all in favour of all kinds of fusions. After all, Irish music has already been influenced by all kinds of music. Music is something that's easier to understand than language, and we always have to hope that if people listen to one another's music, it might help them to overcome some of the ignorance they have of one another and of one another's humanity. What Ireland is struggling with is something that the whole world is struggling with right now, but the Smithsonian Institution certainly always put a tremendous emphasis on musical diversity as a way of encouraging and celebrating the cultural diversity of a country, rather than denigrating or trying to avoid it."

Prof Seeger will address the symposium A National Ethnomusicology in the Wood Room, Plassey House, University of Limerick next Wed, Feb 22, 1.30-5pm. Details: Irish World Academy of Music and Dance. 061-202917/086-2301404