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Posted on 04/24/2026 10:06:34 PM PDT by CharlesOConnell
Opera singer Jessye Norman says https://youtube.com/shorts/rzgees_8oII?si=7Aahdum4rPW92GZ7 it has "too much territory". (Its tessatura = an octave, Do to Do, 12 notes from Ab to Ab, PLUS an additional "fifth", 7 notes from Ab to Eb).
Marian Anderson effortlessly sang https://youtu.be/_iYcheeUS5A?si=t2zq5uuyr-DPnQ-v?t=29s The Star Spangle Banner with her 3 octave vocal range. "Registers" is a confusing term. It usually means, one's personal range. But I was taught that a register is a narrow range in which you sing with the same tone; then you have to switch to different positioning of the vocal "mechanism" to go to "another register". You can hear Marian Anderson notably change her tone as she moves to a very different register, and you may even be able to detect a change in her posture -- she tilts her head to a different angle when moving to a far note.
In working today on compiling five verses of The Star Spangled Banner from various sources for intermediate pianists to learn it to play for their families to sing, https://1000-good-songs.org/the-star-spangled-banner-the-national-anthem-of-the-u-s-a-0401-of-1000/, my thinking is that the music by John Stafford Smith, strongly resembles a bugle call, though it is disputable to claim that was the composer's conscious intention.
Here baseball boosters in a local stadium show that, without a band and despite the difficulty of The Star Spangled Banner as music, they are able to handle it quite well. https://youtu.be/M_cMi7y5uqk?si=zpW0fkSyTowekJfP
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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.
The trickiest part is that it starts about two notes from its bottom. Most songs start around the middle of their range. If you try that with the Star Spangled Banner you’ll hurt yourself when you try to get up to the “rockets red glare”.
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.
I used to be able to sing it, when I was young. I simply used an arrangement that suited my voice.
Now, because I strained my singing “muscles” too many times, can’t sing worth beans. Strained my achilles tendons and ham strings too many times, and can’t even run.
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.
I can sing it comfortably. But not exactly professionally, though our high school chorus won best in state. If I sang all day and took lessons, I’d be passably good. My cat would probably bite me though.
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?
I love music but I can’t carry a tune with a bucket.
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!
I have been told that I have a deep, booming voice. If I start out low enough, I can do the whole thing without changing register.
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.
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