The Star Spangled Banner spans 1.5 octaves.
That’s more range than most singers can reach comfortably.
I can pretty easily do the whole range.
Our national anthem has a couple of vocal “leaps” and as a singer, I like that.
I performed it many times before Houston Astros games back when they played in the Astrodome. I was honored to do so.
Hundreds of singers find a way, every year, at sports venues.
Whitney Houston did it with glory.
People tell me that I sing like a bird.
A crow.
I think it takes a certain style of singing to be able to sing it properly. Just because somebody may be a trained opera singer does not mean they are trained to sing something a more average person can handle it.
Some people can sing a genre effortlessly, but will struggle on other genres because their voices aren’t trained outside their genre.
I can do the whole range
It can't be THAT hard -- the freakin' GRATEFUL DEAD sang it in close 3-part harmony, at Candlestick Park, in 1993. Jerry, Bobby, and Vince.
Star Spangled Banner, Grateful Dead 1993 (YouTube)
And no it's not AI. It's real. Sadly, none of the three from that day are still alive. RIP.
The Star-Spangled Banner
Cedarmont Kids
O say, can you see
By the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed
At the twilight’s last gleaming
Whose broad stripes and bright stars
Through the perilous fight
O’er the ramparts we watched
Were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare
The bombs bursting in air
Gave proof through the night
That our flag was still there
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand,
Between their loved home and the war's desolation,
Blessed with vict'ry and peace, may the heav'n rescued land,
Praise the power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: "In God is our trust."
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave,
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!
It’s a difficult song, but an opera singer should be able to handle it better than the rest of us. People love to cheer when that high note is reached successfully.
It’s a drinking song. Maybe you just need a drink.
Geez, I don’t know, I can sing it. Seems singable to me.
Our local TV station plays a short clip of this a couple times a day where the singer mutilates “land of the free” by singing, “land of the ‘free-EE’” taking the “EE” up a fourth. It’s become pretty common and it makes me cringe. WHY?
My niece sings “Star Spangled Banner” before sports events at her school and does an amazing job — a capella, and pure. In her state, she’s the only one who has consistently scored 100% in auditions for All State Choir. She’s a total mean girl brat, though, and that makes us sad. (She’s influenced by dot-Indian mean girl brats she hangs with.)