Tonight I witnessed catastrophe.  Blasphemy.  The absolutely most unacceptable thing to ever happen.  I witnessed the singing of the National Anthem in….gasp….4/4 time.  For those of you who are not musicians, I’m sure you’re scratching your heads.  But for those of us who are musicians, while we may appreciate and even love major sporting events, what we love more is to critique the singing of the National Anthem beforehand.  The conversations usually involve the tempo of said anthem, (it should only last a minute and 10 seconds, according to my husband), whether or not it was performed in an acceptable meter, if the phrasing was musical or not, if it contained melismas, or if it was “interpreted” rather than sung straight ahead. While everyone else is talking about the game itself on social media, my music friends are debating the quality of the National Anthem.

I blame Elisie Jorss-Reilley, Grace Evelyn Boudlin and the 1931 Congress.  After many years and six attempts to pass a bill to make the Star Spangled Banner the National Anthem, a petition with enough signatures was signed and given to a committee writing what would be the final bill.  The same committee these two lovely ladies sang to to prove that the tune wasn’t too high for the typical person to sing.  As a teacher of singing, I would agree that it shouldn’t be too high to sing, but it certainly would depend on the key it’s being sung in and how well the person has been instructed. After all, it’s an octave and a half range.  And let’s be honest, it’s not the most beautiful melody to begin with, and it’s a borrowed melody at that.  I’m sure when sung for it’s original purpose, while drunk, nobody cared if you couldn’t hit the notes or not.

But the deed has been done, and so now as musicians, we’re being pretty tough on this one little song.  As a patriotic American, I believe the anthem should be done with dignity and to the best of ones ability.  But I find it ironic that the very group of people who encourage creativity, personal interpretation and thinking outside the box get completely locked in the box when it comes to the National Anthem.  These are not conservative Republican types of people by the way, these are liberal thinking individuals who would normally call for complete freedom of expression.

Granted, the National Anthem should not be sung as a performance, but led to encourage others to join in the singing.  That’s pretty difficult if the singer decided to take a lot of liberties with the tune.  It’s a pretty cool thing when the leader can get a large number of people to sing it together.  At Husker football games, the band leads the audience of 90,000 people to sing and it’s an awesome thing.  But what works is that the band plays it the same every time and the audience knows what to expect.  There’s not the issue of individuality to deal with.

And speaking of individuality, how about culture and diversity?  Artists who come from different cultural backgrounds, sing different genres of music, come from different generations are going to feel it differently.  If you want the National Anthem to be done straight ahead, have an opera singer do it, but you won’t be able to understand the words because they’ll modify the vowels.  Then you’ll have some music teacher critiquing that.  And nobody will sing along because they’ll feel intimidated.  It’s a no win situation.

What I think I love about our National Anthem is that every rendition IS different.  It represents the diversity of our nation, the creativity of our nation, the celebration of individualism within one nation.  After all, all men are created equal, but are not the same.  And while I’m sure there are performers who look at singing the anthem in front of a large audience as another entry on the resume, I’m betting most of them are honored to sing our National Anthem to represent all Americans.

So, while I’m still not a fan of melismas unless it’s in a gospel tune or opera, I would encourage my music friends to rethink their positions and encourage what makes our country great in the first place.  Not a particular interpretation of the National Anthem but the people it represents.