CPAC Conferences

[MN-Skeptic]

I agree with not piling on her personally. She's young.

But dang!... I just love the musicians figuring out which key she is singing each phrase in. That is just epic as they play along with her, adjusting their chords accordingly (a-chord-ingly ).

[Maybenaut]

She was poorly served by CPAC in allowing her to do the anthem without accompaniment. It's tough enough when you are young, have no real professional experience, and are shot through with nerves. The least they could have done for her was run a backing track. Not saying she would have nailed it, but it would have been hella better.

The blowback on this feels very bullying to me. YMMV.

As I said upthread, this is a hard song. I'm not making fun of her -- I'm laughing at the CPAC organizers for obviously not auditioning her. (or maybe she just volunteered and it wasn't a paid gig?)
I agree, a backing musical accompaniment would have helped her.

It is a hard song. I have a great deal of experience performing in public and I’d never attempt this song a cappella (and probably not with a backing track). Performing in public is hard. I give props to anyone who does it, no matter how bad the performance.

Parenthetically, I’m a member of an organization that encourages amateur musicians to perform. Some are better than others. Some are more polished. Some have to work hard at it, while it comes easy to others. But it’s scary as fuck. I couldn’t imagine the entire world picking apart a performance of mine. That poor young woman must be mortified. I’ll not pile on.

[somerset]

Still waking up, but do I see someone's name spelled wrong??

You do indeed

I think this is the most significant takeaway from CPAC. It shows that even among the most rabid RWNJs, tp's support isn't all that great.

[Flatpoint High]

a heavy.com

trump.jpg (28.5 KiB) Viewed 3276 times

[realist]

Listening to the Star Spangled Banner fiasco, first being a singer, and my eldest daughter being a concert pianist for many years, my real sympathy was drawn to the accompanist. It was impossible for him to follow her. He was obviously frustrated, but kept plugging along best he could.

His faceplant when it was over was epic.

[MN-Skeptic]

Listening to the Star Spangled Banner fiasco, first being a singer, and my eldest daughter being a concert pianist for many years, my real sympathy was drawn to the accompanist. It was impossible for him to follow her. He was obviously frustrated, but kept plugging along best he could.

His faceplant when it was over was epic.

I'm pretty sure she sang a cappella. The various accompanied performances online were all added after the event.

[neonzx]

It is a hard song. I have a great deal of experience performing in public and I’d never attempt this song a cappella (and probably not with a backing track). Performing in public is hard. I give props to anyone who does it, no matter how bad the performance.

Parenthetically, I’m a member of an organization that encourages amateur musicians to perform. Some are better than others. Some are more polished. Some have to work hard at it, while it comes easy to others. But it’s scary as fuck. I couldn’t imagine the entire world picking apart a performance of mine. That poor young woman must be mortified. I’ll not pile on.

Yeah, I blame CPAC for this. Whatever the circumstances were (was she a late addition and no time to practice in front of a bathroom mirror?, or she got on stage and being nervous threw her off key?, or what?).
I'm thinking it's Orlando FL. I can pretty much say with certainty that Disney World has at least a few young performers at their park who could have done it as a side-gig.

[Chilidog]

Still waking up, but do I see someone's name spelled wrong??

That totals out to 87. Who got the other 13%

[raison de arizona]

https://mobile.twitter.com/MollyJongFas ... 1917538311

Still waking up, but do I see someone's name spelled wrong??

That totals out to 87. Who got the other 13%

Results of the straw poll.

I’m pleased with Josh Hawley’s showing.

[Luke]

When you perform publicly, whether on YouTube, American Idol, or CPAC, you're going to get critiqued and dragged. This wasn't a school play or backyard BBQ. She knew she was singing at a huge event the DL2XIT was appearing at along with some of the nastiest pols in the USA. CPAC could have edited it out but it's still on their official feed (on the full day and broken out). This was not just because it was acapella, she's flat and sharp and can't stay on pitch or key. She'd be humiliated on American Idol or any other show. Singing is not for her. She's not 12, she's an adult.

My buddy Jane Krakowski started singing when we were kids, she was in the Radio City Christmas Spectacular at 9 or 10 and she bombed, they dragged her. Performers learn from criticism. Jane fixed it and turned out just fine. So if Sailor wants to be a singer, she needs to listen to criticism and take vocal lessons. And her parents (whom I suspect put her up to this) should get a lot of blame for putting her somewhere she didn't belong. So our mileage does vary on this though respect all points of view.

And yes, all those clips were musicians stunned and trying to play to figure out what she was doing after the fact. That's what's so funny about them. They are after the fact; the transcription and accompaniments are musicians backing into what she was singing. The fact that many thought the accompanists were live with her is really interesting and shows how good those musicians are. It's much worse acapella! It's not even about her, note that almost nowhere is her name used; it's the sheer wildness of how incredibly off-key that performance was. The National Anthem is a hard song, but it's not by any means impossible or even really hard if you beware the traps the vocal coach I posted mentions. She's an adult and she destroyed that song and musicians are just having some fun with it.

It made SNOPES The Goldings version used by Snopes is the one Billy Porter sent, had seen the Kevon version first. Sorry if it wasn't clear the tracks were added after... that's really what makes it funny.

Is That CPAC National Anthem Video Real?
A viral video supposedly showing a befuddled pianist and an offkey singer went viral.
Dan Evon Published 1 March 2021

Claim: A video shows a messy version of the "The Star-Spangled Banner" that was performed at the 2021 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Rating: Mixture

About this rating: What's True
The singer in this video, Sailor Sabol, performed the national anthem on the first day of CPAC 2021.

What's False
However, the portion of this video featuring a befuddled piano accompanist was created as a joke, and did not air at CPAC. Claims that the singer was "Ted Cruz's dog walker" and that this performance occurred just before former U.S. President Donald Trump's speech are false.

Origin
In February 2021, as conservatives gathered in Orlando, Florida, for the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), a video went viral on social media that supposedly showed how the conference began with a messy rendition of the national anthem. The viral CPAC national anthem video features a split screen. On one side, there’s a singer. And on the other, we see a pianist rush to his seat and hurriedly prepare himself to play as a voice off camera can be heard saying “don’t screw this up.” The video on the right features a genuine video from CPAC. The video on the left does not.



This rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” was performed by singer Sailor Sabol. While some on social media claimed that this singer is also Ted Cruz’s dog walker (a reference to a misleading claim about the Texas senator “abandoning” his dog when he traveled to Cancun, Mexico, during a severe winter storm), that is not the case. Others claimed that this performance took place just before former U.S. President Donald Trump took the stage. That is also untrue.

According to CPAC’s schedule, this rendition of the national anthem took place on the first day of CPAC 2021. Trump spoke on the final day of the conference. An unaltered version of Sabol’s performance can be seen at the 20 minute mark of the following video:





As you can see, this was an a capella version (sans piano accompaniment) of the national anthem.

Sabol’s interpretation of “The Star-Spangled Banner” struck a sour chord with some social media users, who shared video of her rendition with various jokes and criticism. One person, for instance, claimed that this song was in the “key of Q” (a reference to the Qanon conspiracy theory.) As the criticism circulated, some musicians started posting videos of themselves playing along with Sabol. The viral video shared above comes from pianist Larry Goldings. Here’s a similar parody video from Kevon Carter:

Kevon is absolutely classic in this. Another crazy thing is how long she held the "free" -- what the musicians do during that note is hilarious. The guitarist below played the Jeopardy final answer music This also has the transcription in real time -- it shows the key changes and even tempo changes. If you read music it's just unbelievable.



We also like that this is the only thing many people are going to remember about CPAC 2021. DL2XIT will be pissed when he finds out these videos got far more views than the conference.

[raison de arizona]

Off Topic

Speaking of crazy musical performances, I find this one delightful!
https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMe6dVKcA/

[Luke]

Thank you, never saw that! That is hilarious! Reminded me right away of The Music Man. The applause at the end is the cherry on top. We need a Terrible Music and Musical Performances topic, with everybody having video now there are some priceless moments.

[neonzx]

(we need our smilies fixed)

[RVInit]

My life pretty well sucks at the moment, and I want to say thanks, Orlylicious, for posting the Kevon Carter video. I laughed so hard and that felt good.

Do I HAVE to go back to real life, now? Please, don't make me...

[raison de arizona]

Romney gets beat up at CPAC. (That's a joke.)

Manu Raju
@mkraju
Mitt Romney, who had bruised eyes and wounds on his lips, told us: “I took a fall” while visiting his grandkids in Boston this weekend. He said he was knocked “unconscious but I’m doing better.” He said he was taken to the hospital and “had a lot of stitches.”

Romney wouldn’t say what he was doing when he fell but he joked: “Oh my goodness. I went to CPAC. That was a problem.”

[northland10]

Thank you, never saw that! That is hilarious! Reminded me right away of The Music Man. The applause at the end is the cherry on top. We need a Terrible Music and Musical Performances topic, with everybody having video now there are some priceless moments.

I'm a choir director, a former middle/high school vocal music teacher, and have done various directing of musicals while teaching. While I saw and participating in some wonderful performances, I have also seen some really ugly ones (sitting through auditions comes to mind). I don't really see the need to torture myself with that. It brings back flashbacks.

As for the performer at CPAC, given her age, I suspect she did not get much vocal training in school. There are various reasons for that. It may have not been an option, she had some choir director tell her she can't sing (I really get annoyed when I hear that one), or she had a father, stage mother, or relative convince her that she was the greatest voice ever so anything the teachers/directors said was just wrong and picking on her (I have run up against this at various times).

IMO (I get to play expert on this one), much of pitch matching and intonation issues are not due to ear as much as they are proper use of the vocal process. Even when somebody may have some challenges in auditory processing they can make up for it with proper breathing/support along with open throat/space in the mouth/vowels shapes, etc. You also work with students to find their tessitura (ideal range) and work outward from there (which is a challenge with changing voices and why sometimes pitch matching can be tough).

What I heard with the soloist was full-out belting. Those who are into belting usually need to develop the back end to support it (especially as you can really damage a voice without the technical end to support that style of singing). Full-out belting without proper training can make pitch matching very difficult except for those born with a very good relative or near-perfect pitch.

[pipistrelle]

I hear music perfectly. I can tell when a note is slightly off.

I learned very early I can’t sing. I really can’t sing. I quit school chorus and church choir because even quietly I suck. A friend in college said, sure you can. Gotta work at it. I “sang.” He said something like, that was interesting how many keys you worked in there.

I’m so bad I can’t even sing to amuse myself. It’s that bad.

But I do know not to start too high or low because I also have no range.

(Audition tapes available on request.)

[LM K]

Strippers dance better.

I’m thinking Kimberly reminds Donnie of mommy Ivana.

I’ll let LMK explain the implications.

Ewwwww!!

[zekeb]

Strippers dance better.

I’m thinking Kimberly reminds Donnie of mommy Ivana.

I’ll let LMK explain the implications.

Ewwwww!!

You can't say Ewwwww until you've had Stu standing over your pretend dead body saying, "he was such a nice boy. I want his boots."

[northland10]

I hear music perfectly. I can tell when a note is slightly off.

I learned very early I can’t sing. I really can’t sing. I quit school chorus and church choir because even quietly I suck. A friend in college said, sure you can. Gotta work at it. I “sang.” He said something like, that was interesting how many keys you worked in there.

I’m so bad I can’t even sing to amuse myself. It’s that bad.

But I do know not to start too high or low because I also have no range.

(Audition tapes available on request.)

While I can't make an opinion without working with you, I will admit there are times that, despite the greatest effort, it still fails (a deacon and friend comes to mind). However, my optimism requires me to try and keep trying with the hope that it can work.

When I was in seminary, one of the people who sat next to me sang like a monotone. I was also in a class with her called "Use of the voice in public worship" (I took it, in part, to observe HOW the professor would instruct the students as my role later, as I had done earlier, may involve working with clergy on singing). One of the requirements was to lead one of the nightly sung Evensong services. Here, the officiant chants many of the prayers and other officiant parts. Given her special needs, she met with the instructor separately. When she did officiate, she did fine. It, of course, was not stellar but she was consistently on pitch in the needed areas.

The big thing... she was singing in her head voice which helped her match pitch much better. Too many people try to sing out of their "chest voice" (belters do this). Even with basses, I will work with them to bring their head voice (basically the falsetto) down over the break (the passaggio). This helps in both tone and matching pitch (though does create a fair amount of whining from the bass). In the process, sometimes we find the bass is really a baritone or even a tenor.

[Suranis]

Sorry guys. She is a agrown woman. People are saying "oh dont pick on her as she looks cute and delicate." 'Equality' means everyone taking it on the chin, womanly cute or not.

Besides, there is probably some sordid story as to why she got into the role in the first place.

[neonzx]

Sorry guys. She is a agrown woman. People are saying "oh dont pick on her as she looks cute and delicate." 'Equality' means everyone taking it on the chin, womanly cute or not.

Besides, there is probably some sordid story as to why she got into the role in the first place.

She obviously knew what she was getting into. She's an adult, not a delicate flower. I protect children. She's not one.

Dance//

[Luke]

1000% agree with you Northland, really enjoyed reading your posts about it. (Actually, enjoy everything you post ) Her breathing is all wrong and she was belting, those high notes need a combo with head voice.

Sailor's a college freshman. "UCF Burnett Honors College 2024" Now she's has set all her videos to private. Also set her Instagram to private (hadn't seen it): https://www.instagram.com/marine_life7/?hl=en Got a copy of her Splash Mountain rant but not the songs. We love Splash Mountain and while understanding Disney's thinking, these young people don't connect Song of the South with the attraction (Uncle Remus never appears). That's a different discussion. But her ignorance and arrogance is DL2XIT-ian.

The Viral CPAC Singer's Takes on Racism Are Worse Than Her National Anthem
In a YouTube video, Sailor Sabol spends 20 minutes suggesting that Splash Mountain is a metaphor for America, or whatever.
By Jelisa Castrodale March 1, 2021, 10:34pm
***
Sailor Sabol, a 19-year-old college student, was selected to sing the anthem in Orlando last weekend, performing on a Hyatt hotel stage that probably wasn't designed to look like a Nazi symbol. Her a cappella version stretched for two solid minutes, and I'm being polite when I say that it had more keys than a Hyundai dealership. Unsurprisingly, the internet brought jokes, calling it an "unexpectedly avant-garde tribute to [...] Frank Zappa" and suggesting that it was sung "in the key of Q." The Daily Mail went with "The Star Mangled Banner" while conservative website Red State called it "sung straight up…no 'artistic interpretation.'" (They are correct in suggesting that it wasn't artistic.)
***
One of the bigger questions is why Sabol was on that weird probably-not-Nazi-shaped stage in the first place. The Florida native isn't a superstar singer, but that's not unusual for the event; previous anthem performers have included a 14-year-old guitarist and one of the more disposable former Pussycat Dolls. But Sabol does seem to tick a few of CPAC's boxes: she's a registered Republican, a member of the University of Central Florida's College Republicans, and is also cool with sharing her questionable takes on diversity and inclusion. (VICE has reached out to CPAC, its organizer the American Conservative Union, and the UCF GOP, but as of this writing, we have not received a response from any of them.)

In a YouTube video called "Destroying Splash Mountain = Destroying America (a rant)," Sabol spends 20 minutes suggesting that Walt Disney World's decision to change the theme of its Splash Mountain log flume ride is somehow a metaphor for America, or whatever. "The most disgusting decision, and I'm only being partially sarcastic is that they're redoing Splash Mountain," she says, sitting underneath a plush narwhal. "I got really really really triggered about this yesterday [...] It really shows that nothing is safe. It's symbolic of America as a whole." Last summer, Disney announced that it would be 'completely reimagining' the Splash Mountain attractions at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World, shifting them away from references to Song of the South, the notorious 1946 film that one former Disney CEO diplomatically described as "fairly offensive." The new attractions will feature characters from The Princess and the Frog, including Princess Tiana, Disney's first Black princess.

"America was not founded on racism, it was founded around, with racism, that's how I say, not on racism, with racism," I say that because racism was never put in words [...] in the Constitution," Sabol continues. "Just like how Disney banned Song of the South from being released on DVD because they recognized over time that they've grown past it, that they no longer support it, America had a Civil War where many people died to free people. America had Civil Rights movements. America today, it's like the worst accusation you can have for somebody is saying that they're racist." Even though Splash Mountain was, in fact, based on the most racist film that has ever been locked in the Disney Vault, Sabol argues that the attraction's premise was "good"—much in the same way that America was founded on "good" ideas that have been (unfairly, in her opinion) reconsidered and maligned by contemporary society.

"Like Splash Mountain, even though they got rid of Song of the South, even though they said 'You know what, we don't support the ideas of Song of the South, but the ride is still fundamentally good,' that's not good enough," she complains. "We have to redo Splash Mountain. We have to start all over, we have to start all over with America, we have to change our history, we have to change our statues, we need to change everything, we need to change all the road signs. We don't. This is ridiculous. It's too far, it's too revisionary [...] We are fundamentally good [sic] country. We have problems, but not as many as many countries are today. We were founded with problems, but today we are very good. And many other countries today? Awful. Absolutely awful." At the beginning of the video, Sabol warns that she "can't be quiet anymore." If she continues to publish content like this, then there's a chance she'll be back at CPAC next year—except this time, she'll probably be giving a presentation.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx894y/ ... nal-anthem

She sounded like an entitled brat in the video.

Devon's track is getting *huge* attention and in the entertainment pro community as well. We corresponded briefly, he says it's been like a hurricane.

CPAC’s disastrous national anthem inspires best meme of the week
By Dan Tracer 12 hours ago · 23 comments

Sailor Sabol is a young Florida Republican whose most recent YouTube video, “Destroying Splash Mountain = Destroying America”, is a 20-minute rant about how “triggered” she is by Disney’s decision to redesign the ride by replacing references to 1946’s Song of the South, widely criticized for its depiction of African Americans, with a theme based 2009’s The Princess and the Frog.

“It really shows that nothing is safe,” she says.

Nine months after recording the video, she proved her point while serenading attendees of the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) with the national anthem. Nothing is safe.

https://www.queerty.com/cpacs-disastrou ... k-20210301

On a brighter note, she was selected for an environmental summit and published some stuff about Florida wildlife.

Sailor Sabol, a student at Saint Lucie West Centennial High School, has been selected to represent Port Saint Lucie, Florida as a National Youth Delegate to the 2018 Washington Youth Summit on the Environment at George Mason University. Sabol joins a select group of 300 students from across the country to participate in an intensive, week-long study of leadership in environmental science and conservation. Sabol was chosen based on academic accomplishments and a demonstrated interest and excellence in leadership in the sciences and conservation studies.

Invasive SPECIES OF FLORIDA
Published with reusable license by Sailor Sabol October 6, 2019


But it's not about her, it really was how crazy CPAC was to put her up there and the creativity of tons of musicians who just couldn't believe it was possible. Hope Coltrane Fractals and Giant Steps are next!

[sugar magnolia]

She's not real clear on US history, is she?

[Volkonski]

She's not real clear on US history, is she?

No she's not.

There are many like her.