Posted on 08/10/2008 3:05:12 AM PDT by tellw
Video of the U.S. National anthem as it was played by our Chinese "hosts" for Michael Phelps' gold medal...awful!!
I wouldn’t think so. Stuff like this happens. China wants to put on a great Olympics with minimal problems. This will get worked out.
I can spot them the glitch, but not the arrangement of the anthem, which goes into weird minor and diminished chords during the rockets red glare.
The Chinese are the enemy. I will not watch any part of this joke claimed to be the Olympics. America should have boycotted this thing in the first place.
Oh good grief. What a mess.
OH no! You are missing the exciting Badmitton championship.
Came across as weak... wistful...
Is it the new BHo version?
Surely it is Bush’s fault!
We all know that ROVE was the one that snookered J.boyE into pokin’ that old Hippie.
Can't get your fill of shuttlecock action... ?
Can't get your fill of shuttlecock action... ?
There was not any report of a problem when that US lady was presented her gold medal over at Fencing. There has been only 2 US gold medal winners so far, so you will get a chance to see if this occurs again when the US wins some more gold medals, as expected. And most especially with Phelps expected to win gold again in swimming.
It sounds like a bunch of tubas and baritones playing the same phrase over and over and over.... Not really the anthem but just the first line.... how efficient of the Chicoms...
Badminton
Hmmm...... it was cut off during the part that said “the land of the free”..... Hmmm..........
Good grief. This is a non-story. It was a technical glitch. Whatever poor Chinese worker that screwed it up is probably being beaten in an underground prison as we speak. They also play the national anthem of each team before team events. I heard it earlier this morning for the U.S. field hockey game and yesterday for the fencing ceremony. No problems either time.
Actually, I thought the treatment of that section was great -- some slight, very interesting and effective reharmonization, and an unexpected but lovely choice to have the brass lay out and give the "rockets red glare" to the strings and winds. I thought that part of the arrangement worked really well.
True, the did inexplicably repeat the first 8 measure 3 times, and then went back to it a fourth time instead of finishing the song. So they definitely did screw up the form of the tune, and apparently just blew the ending completely. But it didn't seem like disrespect to me, just confusion. In fact, it seemed more like the musical equivalent of Engrish (Chingrish?). Hope they get it right the next time.
But I thought the arrangement itself was fine. Not that I'm the world's greatest arranger myself, but I did graduate Magna cum laude from Boston's Berklee College of Music in the late '70s, and have done a fair amount of professional arranging and orchestration in the years since.
I agree...I was watching the medal ceremony, and as I was cringing, my wife was caught up in the pagentry and never once caught the weak-arse rendering of our National Anthem...
Seems to me that since our President is there...Why not tell someone at the Olympic committee that this is a travesty and that they’d better get this straightened out before we win more gold medals...
The next gold medal is probably being awarded right now...
So it might be a good idea to get the anthem remixed in the correct format...
Not that I am being critical of the Chinese.../big time sarcasm
Not to mention the most worthless of Olympic sports: beach volleyball. NBC continued their tradition of awful coverage by putting that garbage on at 8pm last night.
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