The song is notoriously difficult to sing
Eight-year-old causes a sensation with passionate performance of the national anthem
Eight-year-old Kinsley Murray took advantage of the spotlight to passionately sing “The Star Spangled Banner” before an Indiana Pacers game.
Every now and then a video of a singer performing the national anthem goes viral, and not for good reason. It just happened again.
This time it was the performance of country star Ingrid Andress before the Major League Baseball Home Run Derby on Monday. Andress said on Tuesday that she was drunk during her performance and was going to check herself into rehab.
Prior to Andress’s announcement, critics flocked to social media to compare Andress to equally memorable “Star-Spangled Banner” performances before big games, including Fergie’s missed performance at the 2018 NBA All-Star Game.
“I apologize to MLB, all the fans and this country that I love so much for this portrayal,” Andress said.
But many singers have had problems with the song before. So why does it keep happening? Well, partly because the song is notoriously difficult to sing.
Why is the “Star-Spangled Banner” so difficult to sing?
In short, the national anthem is so difficult to sing because it has a remarkable range between high and low notes. The song spans one and a half octaves, so singers must carefully choose what key they want to sing it in. A wrong beginning can lead to a disastrous ending.
“It is difficult for untrained singers and challenging for trained singers because it is long and has a large range and many melodic leaps,” said Christopher Swanson, a music professor who has performed the hymn, in a Longwood University release.
According to Susan Dunn, a music professor at Duke University, breathing in the right places between musical phrases is also a challenge.
The lyrics can also easily lead to confusion. Christina Aguilera famously mixed up lines of the anthem when she sang it in 2011. Eric Burton made a similar mistake in 2022.
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What makes the American national anthem unique?
The “Star-Spangled Banner” is often performed by celebrity singers before major sporting events, trying to put their own spin on the song. Some, like Idinia Menzel at the 2015 Super Bowl, sing it unaccompanied, while others, like Jennifer Hudson at the 2009 Super Bowl, have given the song a jazz twist, the Washington Post reported.
From different musical styles to different keys, the anthem is interpreted in many different ways, which is unusual for a national anthem. According to Dunn, it can also be difficult for audiences to sing along when the anthem is sung in a way they are not used to.
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What is the Star-Spangled Banner about?
When lawyer and poet Francis Scott Key wrote the Star-Spangled Banner, he was inspired by witnessing the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in Baltimore during the War of 1812. On September 14, 1814, Key saw that an American flag was still flying.
In early 1814, Americans watched as the British set fire to the White House and other important buildings during a raid on Washington, D.C. This was a blow to American morale, but also served as a catalyst to mobilize Americans for the war effort.
Key witnessed the 25-hour bombardment of Fort McHenry from a ship in Baltimore harbor, where he had tried to negotiate the release of the Americans, according to the Kennedy Center. When the smoke cleared and daylight arrived, he marveled at the sight of the American flag being raised by U.S. soldiers over the fort. He immediately began writing the first verse of the “Star-Spangled Banner.”
How did the “Star-Spangled Banner” become the national anthem?
Key set his text to the then popular melody of the “Anacreontic Song,” the song of an 18th-century London gentlemen’s club.
The song, initially called “Defence of Fort McHenry,” quickly became popular and the lyrics were printed in newspapers, which eventually reprinted them under the title “Star-Spangled Banner.”
The song was often sung for patriotic reasons and played at military ceremonies in the 19th century, but was not officially declared the U.S. national anthem until 1931, when Congress passed a law to that effect and President Herbert Hoover signed it into law.
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