Publications by Chelsea Burns
Journal of Popular Music Studies, 2020
Bobby Womack's BW Goes C&W (1976) presents a case study in country's long entanglement with race ... more Bobby Womack's BW Goes C&W (1976) presents a case study in country's long entanglement with race and genre boundaries. Though Womack incorporated country references on other albums, this was his only country album. It is sonically proximal to pop country of the 1970s, while including elements of soul and R&B. Womack aimed to make not just any country recording, but one that would address a black audience and highlight—visually and aurally—a black identity. This article provides close readings to show how Womack's album engaged with country music while actively confronting racial exclusion in the genre.
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Music Theory Online, 2019
Buck Owens and the Buckaroos’ 1964 hit “Together Again” tells, in ambivalent terms, of a couple’s... more Buck Owens and the Buckaroos’ 1964 hit “Together Again” tells, in ambivalent terms, of a couple’s reunion. The song is best known for Tom Brumley’s pedal steel guitar solo, a quintessential example of the trademark “crying” sound of the instrument. Brumley’s steel stylings emphasize a negative interpretation of the text, and some of the most poignant elements of his remarkable solo were guided by the mechanics of the instrument. I explore the relationship between the limits and special capabilities of the pedal steel guitar, and I discuss how Brumley highlights both of these aspects in this brief yet famous solo, illustrating relationships between text and technics in this iconic recording.
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Dissertation by Chelsea Burns
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Conference Presentations by Chelsea Burns
In December 1927, Paris’s Maison Gaveau hosted a performance of works by Heitor Villa-Lobos, to g... more In December 1927, Paris’s Maison Gaveau hosted a performance of works by Heitor Villa-Lobos, to great acclaim. A front-page review of the concert in the newspaper L’Intransigeant noted especially a series of three songs for orchestra and voice. Trois poêmes indiens sparked much gawking in Europe, highlighting a tale of Villa-Lobos’s capture by Amerindian Brazilian “cannibals,” his rescue by heroic whites, and his eventual return to urban life with the fruits of “jungle” music.
The story is surely apocryphal, but the works, later arranged for piano and voice and published with the Portuguese title Tres poêmas indigenas (1929), shed light on a very real cultural-historical process. Villa-Lobos was no collector-champion: two of the texts on which the songs were based had previously been published with melodies in ethnographic volumes, and the other was newly written by Villa-Lobos’s modernist colleague Mário de Andrade. Yet Villa-Lobos’s songs are at pains to define and make use of indigenous Brazilian identity. And they do so in a particular way, inscribing indigeneity and modernism together into contemporary Brazilian nationalism.
Over the course of the three songs, Villa-Lobos uses increasing pitch resources and expanded internal contrast to create a progressive image of Amerindian music-making, one that begins with a narrow pitch collection and ostinati and ends with a more Lied-like approach to text-music relations. Villa-Lobos not only takes advantage of Brazilian urban Indianist fantasies, but also redefines indigeneity as something expansive, an innate trait of brasilidade (Brazilian-ness) that can include even the most modern and urban of texts, as long as they draw upon themes perceived to be related to indigeneity.
Using the score, its performance history, and reception, I take Tres poêmas indigenas as a case study in composition’s exposure to intertwining pressures of exoticism, modernism, and nationalism. Villa-Lobos’s embrace of distant, primitive indigeneity made for good fortune on foreign shores. But it also served a domestic project in which indigeneity was cast as integral to national identity. From these songs, I also connect to broader discussions of the relationship between indigeneity and nationalism and of the foreign and domestic consumption of Amerindian caricatures.
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The Boston bluegrass scene has been fertile ground for a number of successful bluegrass groups an... more The Boston bluegrass scene has been fertile ground for a number of successful bluegrass groups and players, from “traditional” ensembles like Mile Twelve to progressive powerhouse Crooked Still. And while bluegrass is often associated with non-academic settings, Boston’s bluegrass has a distinctly academic flavor, owing strongly to programs of study at both Berklee College of Music (American Roots program) and New England Conservatory (Contemporary Improvisation program). While neither of these programs is strictly focused on bluegrass, numerous players of the genre have emerged from both schools, yielding a community of musicians with shared training practices that emphasize virtuosic instrumental performance. In this talk, I discuss the ways in which the structures of the programs and the influence of specific individuals like Matt Glaser (who runs the American Roots program) have shaped the style and sound of bluegrass in Boston in indelible ways.
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This paper presents an analytical exploration of concert music in Brazil in the late 1920s, a p... more This paper presents an analytical exploration of concert music in Brazil in the late 1920s, a period in which written discourse contradicts musical practice. At this time, critics and composers alike discussed the incorporation of vernacular elements into art music; indeed, the suggestion of the popular became the chief marker of nationalism in Brazilian art music of this period. Individuals disagreed, however, about how the “popular” ought to be defined, and how best to incorporate it within the repertory.
Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Chôros No. 4 (1926) presents one example of this friction between music and discourse. The work is divided into a “learned” section and a “vernacular” section; the two are roughly pasted together, leaving an audible seam between música popular and its counterpart, música erudita. In his treatment of the popular, Villa-Lobos directly contradicts the edicts of tastemaker Mário de Andrade, who was far and away the most prominent and powerful musicologist and critic in modernist Brazil. Andrade argued that rural musics should represent the popular, and that these should be deeply integrated into compositions, rather than placed on the surface as exotic elements. By separating out the popular, and using urban materials (choro, from which the work takes its name), Villa-Lobos contradicts Andrade’s artistic mandates.
To contextualize this approach among others, I touch upon composers Francisco Mignone and Luciano Gallet, who used different techniques to integrate popular and erudita. This comparative talk thus illuminates ways in which discourse and practice interact and diverge in 1920s Brazilian art music.
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Buck Owens’s 1964 hit “Together Again” tells of a couple’s reunion in ambivalent terms. However, ... more Buck Owens’s 1964 hit “Together Again” tells of a couple’s reunion in ambivalent terms. However, the song is best known for Tom Brumley’s pedal steel solo, a quintessential example of the trademark “crying” sound of the instrument. In this paper, I argue that Brumley’s steel stylings emphasize the negative undertones of the song and, moreover, that some of the most poignant elements of his remarkable solo were dictated by the mechanics of the instrument. I contextualize this song not only within Buck Owens’s oeuvre, but also pedal steel recordings of the time, to illustrate tensions between text and technics in this iconic recording.
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Talks by Chelsea Burns
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Papers by Chelsea Burns
Twentieth-Century Music, Sep 30, 2023
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Journal of Popular Music Studies, 2020
Bobby Womack's BW Goes C&W (1976) presents a case study in country's long entanglement wi... more Bobby Womack's BW Goes C&W (1976) presents a case study in country's long entanglement with race and genre boundaries. Though Womack incorporated country references on other albums, this was his only country album. It is sonically proximal to pop country of the 1970s, while including elements of soul and R&B. Womack aimed to make not just any country recording, but one that would address a black audience and highlight—visually and aurally—a black identity. This article provides close readings to show how Womack's album engaged with country music while actively confronting racial exclusion in the genre. Today's discourse about race and genre provide opportunities to reconsider these issues in country music's history—a history that continues to ramify. For comparison, I address parallels in recent country music, demonstrating that the genre-color line that hemmed in Womack is under scrutiny. But this scrutiny is a far cry from change. Womack explicitly confronted r...
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Music Theory Spectrum, 2020
Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Tres poêmas indigenas (1926, published 1929) provide an unusual image of Bra... more Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Tres poêmas indigenas (1926, published 1929) provide an unusual image of Brazilian indigeneity: in three short songs, he creates a narrative of progress, one that ends with redefining himself and modernist colleague Mário de Andrade as Amerindian. The first two songs set melodies collected in 1557 and 1912, the third a new poem by Andrade (1926). The set begins with a narrow pitch collection, thin textures, and ostinatos and ends with a lied-like approach to text–music relations. In this way, Villa-Lobos creates an evolving image of Amerindian music-making that capitalizes on Indianist fantasies while redefining indigeneity as encompassing even the most modern and urbane Brazilians.
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Music Theory Online, 2012
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Súmula: Revista de Teoría y Análisis Musical
Silvestre Revueltas’s Second String Quartet premiered in Mexico City 1931, and was played a year ... more Silvestre Revueltas’s Second String Quartet premiered in Mexico City 1931, and was played a year later at Aaron Copland’s Yaddo Festival in Saratoga Springs. When Copland heard the work, he described it as “very amusing... a little Mexican drama, and I could easily imagine it being danced.” Copland’s description treats the quartet as a unified whole that all functions seamlessly under a US gaze. But he missed many elements of the music—most glaringly, the canción that forms the primary theme (and also subtitle) of the first movement, “Los Magueyes.” Copland’s essentializing take was common for Revueltas reception: critics highlighted his supposed naturalness and naiveté, thereby minimizing Revueltas’s labor and skill and denying the full range of musical features, which are by no means limited to sounds associated with “Mexicanness.” This article explores several alternative analytical interpretations, focusing especially on strategic alterity and composerly ambivalence. These frame...
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Music Theory Online
Buck Owens and the Buckaroos’ 1964 hit “Together Again” tells, in ambivalent terms, of a couple’s... more Buck Owens and the Buckaroos’ 1964 hit “Together Again” tells, in ambivalent terms, of a couple’s reunion. The song is best known for Tom Brumley’s pedal steel guitar solo, a quintessential example of the trademark “crying” sound of the instrument. Brumley’s steel stylings emphasize a negative interpretation of the text, and some of the most poignant elements of his remarkable solo were guided by the mechanics of the instrument. I explore the relationship between the limits and special capabilities of the pedal steel guitar, and I discuss how Brumley highlights both of these aspects in this brief yet famous solo, illustrating relationships between text and technics in this iconic recording.
Bookmarks Related papers MentionsView impact
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Publications by Chelsea Burns
Dissertation by Chelsea Burns
Conference Presentations by Chelsea Burns
The story is surely apocryphal, but the works, later arranged for piano and voice and published with the Portuguese title Tres poêmas indigenas (1929), shed light on a very real cultural-historical process. Villa-Lobos was no collector-champion: two of the texts on which the songs were based had previously been published with melodies in ethnographic volumes, and the other was newly written by Villa-Lobos’s modernist colleague Mário de Andrade. Yet Villa-Lobos’s songs are at pains to define and make use of indigenous Brazilian identity. And they do so in a particular way, inscribing indigeneity and modernism together into contemporary Brazilian nationalism.
Over the course of the three songs, Villa-Lobos uses increasing pitch resources and expanded internal contrast to create a progressive image of Amerindian music-making, one that begins with a narrow pitch collection and ostinati and ends with a more Lied-like approach to text-music relations. Villa-Lobos not only takes advantage of Brazilian urban Indianist fantasies, but also redefines indigeneity as something expansive, an innate trait of brasilidade (Brazilian-ness) that can include even the most modern and urban of texts, as long as they draw upon themes perceived to be related to indigeneity.
Using the score, its performance history, and reception, I take Tres poêmas indigenas as a case study in composition’s exposure to intertwining pressures of exoticism, modernism, and nationalism. Villa-Lobos’s embrace of distant, primitive indigeneity made for good fortune on foreign shores. But it also served a domestic project in which indigeneity was cast as integral to national identity. From these songs, I also connect to broader discussions of the relationship between indigeneity and nationalism and of the foreign and domestic consumption of Amerindian caricatures.
Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Chôros No. 4 (1926) presents one example of this friction between music and discourse. The work is divided into a “learned” section and a “vernacular” section; the two are roughly pasted together, leaving an audible seam between música popular and its counterpart, música erudita. In his treatment of the popular, Villa-Lobos directly contradicts the edicts of tastemaker Mário de Andrade, who was far and away the most prominent and powerful musicologist and critic in modernist Brazil. Andrade argued that rural musics should represent the popular, and that these should be deeply integrated into compositions, rather than placed on the surface as exotic elements. By separating out the popular, and using urban materials (choro, from which the work takes its name), Villa-Lobos contradicts Andrade’s artistic mandates.
To contextualize this approach among others, I touch upon composers Francisco Mignone and Luciano Gallet, who used different techniques to integrate popular and erudita. This comparative talk thus illuminates ways in which discourse and practice interact and diverge in 1920s Brazilian art music.
Talks by Chelsea Burns
Papers by Chelsea Burns
The story is surely apocryphal, but the works, later arranged for piano and voice and published with the Portuguese title Tres poêmas indigenas (1929), shed light on a very real cultural-historical process. Villa-Lobos was no collector-champion: two of the texts on which the songs were based had previously been published with melodies in ethnographic volumes, and the other was newly written by Villa-Lobos’s modernist colleague Mário de Andrade. Yet Villa-Lobos’s songs are at pains to define and make use of indigenous Brazilian identity. And they do so in a particular way, inscribing indigeneity and modernism together into contemporary Brazilian nationalism.
Over the course of the three songs, Villa-Lobos uses increasing pitch resources and expanded internal contrast to create a progressive image of Amerindian music-making, one that begins with a narrow pitch collection and ostinati and ends with a more Lied-like approach to text-music relations. Villa-Lobos not only takes advantage of Brazilian urban Indianist fantasies, but also redefines indigeneity as something expansive, an innate trait of brasilidade (Brazilian-ness) that can include even the most modern and urban of texts, as long as they draw upon themes perceived to be related to indigeneity.
Using the score, its performance history, and reception, I take Tres poêmas indigenas as a case study in composition’s exposure to intertwining pressures of exoticism, modernism, and nationalism. Villa-Lobos’s embrace of distant, primitive indigeneity made for good fortune on foreign shores. But it also served a domestic project in which indigeneity was cast as integral to national identity. From these songs, I also connect to broader discussions of the relationship between indigeneity and nationalism and of the foreign and domestic consumption of Amerindian caricatures.
Heitor Villa-Lobos’s Chôros No. 4 (1926) presents one example of this friction between music and discourse. The work is divided into a “learned” section and a “vernacular” section; the two are roughly pasted together, leaving an audible seam between música popular and its counterpart, música erudita. In his treatment of the popular, Villa-Lobos directly contradicts the edicts of tastemaker Mário de Andrade, who was far and away the most prominent and powerful musicologist and critic in modernist Brazil. Andrade argued that rural musics should represent the popular, and that these should be deeply integrated into compositions, rather than placed on the surface as exotic elements. By separating out the popular, and using urban materials (choro, from which the work takes its name), Villa-Lobos contradicts Andrade’s artistic mandates.
To contextualize this approach among others, I touch upon composers Francisco Mignone and Luciano Gallet, who used different techniques to integrate popular and erudita. This comparative talk thus illuminates ways in which discourse and practice interact and diverge in 1920s Brazilian art music.