"I'm gonna remember you in a week, in a month, in a year"

June 1, 2017 2:18 PM

12-year-old singing ventriloquist gets golden buzzer on America's Got Talent. Darci Lynne Farmer used to be too shy to sing for her own dad. She's been studying ventriloquism for two years.

More of Darci Lynne Farmer's performances.

posted by Lexica (33 comments total)

"You're going to sing? Oh boy."

I love this so much. She was awesome. The audience and the judges gave her a standing ovation! Fantastic!

My 9 year old daughter thought Petunia the rabbit was hilarious and wants us to buy her one.
posted by zarq at 2:50 PM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

I generally can't stand to watch the show because I find the way they treat acts that don't do so well is not cool. I'm not into cringe humor, especially if they're real people with real aspirations. I do like watching clips like this, because I'm always rooting for the performer to do well and amaze the crowd with something completely off the wall. And she did indeed! Right up there with Piff the Magic Dragon and Tapeface - two traditional performers (magician and mime, respectively) who achieved fantastic things with their stagecraft to bring something new to life. She did a great job combining puppetry with ventriloquism with knock-you-over-dead musicianship.
posted by Slap*Happy at 2:52 PM on June 1, 2017 [9 favorites]

Once upon a time, long, long ago, I worked as a janitor at Harborview Hospital, wherein I often worked on the 5th floor locked mental ward.

At one time there was a patient there, a young woman, who had a stuffed rabbit with which she used to sing duets.

As herself, she sang in a sweet contralto.

As her rabbit, she sang in a cracked falsetto an octave higher, often at double time to herself.

It was not so much ventriloquism as close your eyes or stand behind a door and listen to get the full effect.

I remember mopping the hall outside the bathtub room door, while she was inside with her rabbit.

Young woman: You made me love you...

Stuffed rabbit in double-time: I didn't want to do it! I didn't want to do it!

Ah, memories... It still cracks me up to remember it.
posted by y2karl at 3:00 PM on June 1, 2017 [50 favorites]

I'm a grown man, with big muscles and a bushy beard. How do you stop the crying of joy?

This feeling is somewhat foreign to me.
posted by alex_skazat at 3:03 PM on June 1, 2017 [7 favorites]

I enjoy the show but generally skip over the kid acts--I just don't like 'em. For whatever reason, I did watch this performance and it was enchanting--her manipulation of the puppet was great and even when she was overwhelmed and in tears, she had the puppet reacting in character--it was charming!
posted by agatha_magatha at 3:08 PM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

That was incredible. I've been pretty bummed out by the news today, this made my evening so much brighter. Thanks for posting!
posted by banjo_and_the_pork at 3:20 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

The combination of talent and sweetness was pretty electrifying.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 3:34 PM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

I don't understand how it is possible to sing with that kind of depth of sound without ever opening your mouth. I mean, look at the puppet -- the puppet is open-mouthed because that is how singers hit big notes.
posted by jacquilynne at 4:50 PM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

(To be clear, I'm not suggesting she's cheating or anything. I'm just amazed! It's like magic!)
posted by jacquilynne at 4:51 PM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

That was charming and impressive. What does the golden buzzer mean?
posted by amarynth at 5:03 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Golden buzzer = contestant goes straight to the finals, without having to go through the other stages.
posted by AFABulous at 5:05 PM on June 1, 2017 [7 favorites]

Tapeface! I love Tapeface!

There was a guy with a theremin who made it a couple rounds last year. It's the weird acts I always like the best -- the singers and dancers are often the most professional, but you just don't get to see a lot of ventriloquists and jump-ropers and theremin players and mimes and contortionists and baton-twirlers and so on in the regular course of things, so I like those.

(The golden buzzer actually sends them through to the live shows, where the audience starts to vote ... before that, the judges make the cuts in several rounds.)
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:14 PM on June 1, 2017 [9 favorites]

I thought her cool composure and quick wit on her feet after the song was just as impressive.
posted by Room 641-A at 6:09 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

DI don't understand how it is possible to sing with that kind of depth of sound without ever opening your mouth

Two-part answer is 1) she had a mic right at the front of her teeth, which helps amplify better than a mic at the side of her face would, and 2) what you need open even more than the mouth is the back of the throat at the soft palate to get a good strong sound. As you say, none of this takes away from her performance--she's terrific. But almost 90% of singing happens before the sound exits the body.
posted by tzikeh at 6:12 PM on June 1, 2017 [2 favorites]

This is wonderful. I love ventriloquism. There's something about it that is as close to genuine magic as it's possible to get. It makes me so happy to experience someone, who has put in all that work to develop an esoteric skill, transporting me, just briefly, to somewhere​ where the bunny is really alive. Nina Conti has talked very interestingly about the kind of emotional relationship that it is necessary for ventriloquists to hand with their dummies, and I can readily believe it. In ventriloquism done well, there's always a sense that both audience and performer are engaged in a shared suspension of disbelief. For me, the purity of that moment of fiction is really exceptional, perhaps because it's so improbable - I am aware that I shouldn't be convinced, which heightens the impact of the fact that, just briefly, I am

Thank you for sharing this, it is very nice.
posted by howfar at 6:16 PM on June 1, 2017 [5 favorites]

I saw that rabbit's lips moving.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 6:20 PM on June 1, 2017 [12 favorites]

I love that she specifically said she's doing it because she wants to keep ventriloquism alive.
posted by redsparkler at 6:58 PM on June 1, 2017 [6 favorites]

I think she is the best ventriloquist I've ever seen, even setting aside the singing.
posted by Orlop at 7:32 PM on June 1, 2017

Holy hell.
posted by Elementary Penguin at 7:39 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

Aw, this was so lovely, thanks for posting. I never see shows like this, so wouldn't have ever known otherwise, and I am enriched by having seen it.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet at 8:10 PM on June 1, 2017 [1 favorite]

What a wonderful find.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 8:29 PM on June 1, 2017

This girl needs a scholarship from the Fred Rodgers Institute and an audition for Sesame Street, stat. Jim Henson charm, gorgeous voice, pro approach? Too cute.
posted by Hermione Granger at 8:30 PM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

That was a great act, and I generally don't much care for ventriloquists. I'm too cynical, I think.

Beyond the shock of the singing however, she has skills that I think are more vauable. She is a great actress, with an impeccable sense of comic timing. If she wrote the bits herself, then she also has impressive creative skills.

I never watch this kind of thing, so thanks for the link.
posted by PareidoliaticBoy at 11:54 PM on June 1, 2017 [4 favorites]

It also doesn't hurt she is incredibly adorable and appears extremely sweet and innocent without it coming off as fake.
posted by Samizdata at 11:58 PM on June 1, 2017

Appearing just before this contestant was Internet-sensation Puddles The Clown, who, as anyone who has heard him sing would expect, slayed with his cover of "Chandelier". TBH, I feel like Puddles deserved the Golden Buzzer just as much as Darci Lynne and probably has a better, more developed act, but AGT loves the "tug your heartstrings" contestants a little too much.

There have been other ventriloquists who have done quite well on AGT, even winning the competition, but for the most part they were seasoned show-biz professionals with lots of material who could keep coming back with something new and different every time. The lack of a deep act dooms a lot of AGT contestants who are really great the very first time you see them, but then have nothing to follow up with.
posted by briank at 5:33 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

I have watched that show while visiting my mother and I was surprised by how pleasant I found it. It reminds me of the classic variety show and the judges are supportive and encouraging, there is no meanness in it.
posted by zzazazz at 5:39 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

I was surprisingly moved by this when I saw it for the first time yesterday - I honestly didn't expect to enjoy a little kid doing ventriloquism. So impressed, I showed it to the wife after work and made a sad discovery: as great as the performance was, it doesn't hold up once you know the depth of her pipes. I really hope she has something good up her sleeve for the finals because honestly, without that element of surprise, she's just a kid ventriloquist.

I wish her the best, but suspect that she's really going to benefit from not having to do intermediate rounds.
posted by davelog at 5:52 AM on June 2, 2017

She was great - loved the quality of voice.

As far as ventriloquists go, I've always been a fan of Ronn Lucas - great skill on transitions.
posted by plinth at 8:49 AM on June 2, 2017 [1 favorite]

her manipulation of the puppet was great and even when she was overwhelmed and in tears, she had the puppet reacting in character

I think that's what amazed me the most. I can't imagine having the presence of mind to keep doing that.
posted by Ragged Richard at 10:02 AM on June 2, 2017 [5 favorites]

her manipulation of the puppet was great and even when she was overwhelmed and in tears, she had the puppet reacting in character

Any student of Henson immediately recognized her greatest talent is in puppetry. And, yes, after hearing her do that with her mouth closed, the more amazing thing was that the puppet never left character even if the puppeteer did. She never, ever stopped being, no matter what her puppeteer was going through.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:58 PM on June 2, 2017 [3 favorites]

Aw, this was so lovely, thanks for posting. I never see shows like this, so wouldn't have ever known otherwise, and I am enriched by having seen it.
posted by SecretAgentSockpuppet

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a grinning human to silently hold you up on stage while you sing.
posted by otherchaz at 10:40 AM on June 3, 2017

the last few seasons have had fewer of the cringe acts and more emphasis on acts with some actual talent. I don't know what caused the change, but my wife and I have definitely noticed it. In fact, last year, in the final shows, I don't believe they had the annual "bring the weirdos back one more time" song medley that they had always had before.
posted by jkosmicki at 12:33 PM on June 3, 2017

The second audition episode is starting on NBC now!
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 5:03 PM on June 6, 2017