I’m always excited when I find musical or other special answers in the newspaper crossword puzzle which I have been doing daily for the last fifteen years or so. In the past I have found words like ORGAN, ORGANIST, BACH and even CROSIER.
Today’s clue was “Sang _______; without accompaniment” and the answer was A CAPPELLA.
How appropriate, given that a lot of people on Facebook were talking about the a cappella rendition of the National Anthem by Sailor Sabol on the first day of the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) 2021.
Before I get too many tomatoes thrown at me, be advised that there are several versions floating around the Internet — the original a cappella version, and several parody versions with added accompaniment.
From Snopes.com:
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.
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.”
I have to admit that this version, with its possible harmonic analysis, was particularly amusing to me.
The perils of singing a cappella, of course, are that you can start in one key and end up unintentionally in another key, not to mention the occasional changes in mode as shown above in the opening arpeggio in the melody!
Anyone who has sung in a choir a cappella has experienced this phenomenon, sometimes ending with the basses having to sing a low B-flat (if the choir goes flat) or the sopranos having to land a high C (if the choirs go sharp). I have heard this even with professional choirs drifting either flat or sharp, in concert situations yet!
Because of my perfect pitch, when I have joined choirs in singing a cappella, I have at times been forced to transpose instantly in my head when the choirs drift either above or more likely below the pitch.
The question of “Why do choir singers lose pitch” may be attributed to a number of factors: the temperature in the room, the familiarity with the work, the size of the rehearsal or concert venue, the experience of the choral singers and so forth. I even found a whole dissertation on the subject, “Pitch drift in a cappella choral singing in Western music.”
Robert Hines used to tell the choir to “ALWAYS tune to the basses” when singing a capella. It seemed to work pretty well. Later, after I’d heard both Paul Salamunovich AND Robert Shaw give the same direction with the same result, I figured there must be something to it!
Though I think CPAC should have asked a more vocally practiced singer, I kinda felt bad for her. The National Anthem is notoriously hard for even the most gifted of singers. I would NEVER preform it acapella, EVER. Poor thing.
I found it to be strangely appropriate for the occasion.