The national anthem and musical challenges

How many of you think the national anthem is kind of an ordeal to be endured before the start of a sports event?

Don't you groan if the chosen performer chooses a slow tempo? Does it grate at you if the performer seems self-absorbed, as if the audience really is riveted on this particular musical interpretation?

If you're a trumpet player, you know there's a spot toward the end where the lead guy reaches up to a somewhat high note. Do you as a listener cringe as that spot nears, in anticipation of that climactic note and wonder if that player can intone the note cleanly, or if, as Del Sarlette would put it, there is a "fah. . ."

I have written before that most musical instruments are archaic. If they didn't already exist, they wouldn't be invented today.

Why should there be a physical challenge associated with playing an instrument? Why must you "let spit out" of a horn? In an earlier time we faced these sober realities. Today we have electronics.

We ought to be able to execute music the way we type on a computer. Technology is supposed to help us overcome unreasonable physical challenges.

The trumpet requires "chops." The precise term is "embouchure." Jimmy Stewart used this latter specialized term in a movie. Playing a director, Stewart turned to his trumpet soloist (played by the same actor who was "Alfalfa" in "Our Gang") and said "How's your embouchure?"

I remember playing in a trumpet trio for a fashion show at the old elementary auditorium in about 1970. The guy next to me, as a gag, said just before the first note, "your zipper's open."
I was really just along for the ride in that trio. I was the youngest, looking up to "the real deal" whose name was (is) Terry Rice. Terry was a band star in the same sense as a thousand-point scorer in basketball. Another was Renee Schmidt on flute.

I remember Renee being showcased in a concert at the 1968 gym, before the high school auditorium came into existence. I remember being seated up in the bleachers. Remember, the gym was supposedly a step down from the eventual auditorium we got. But it was nice in those bleachers being able to look down on the whole band.

The gym was so well lit and airy and open in atmosphere. The later auditorium seemed dark and stuffy. Worst of all, you could only really see the front row of musicians.

Terry Rice was almost perfect as a trumpet player. His Achilles heel might have been the national anthem. I can claim to be a witness to a Terry Rice "mortal" moment. He was playing the national anthem all by himself before the start of a Minnesota Vikings basketball game at the UMM P.E. Center.

We've all heard of singers getting lost with the lyrics halfway through that ordeal of a song. Terry was his usual masterful self until the last few notes. His mind just seemed to go blank. It was like he forgot what key he was in or something. Happens to the best of us, Terry.

The national anthem is a bear of a song to perform partly because of a wide vocal range. A singer should probably have the lyrics in front of him/her. "Meathead" of "All in the Family" didn't like the song because it "glorifies war."

I think it's very curious we have to be dragged through a rendition of this before every sports game. Maybe during wartime such patriotic fervor has to be whipped up. We're not genuinely in wartime now, that dreary police action in Afghanistan notwithstanding.

We occasionally hear calls for replacing the Star Spangled Banner. We think of this when we hear Mitt Romney's rendition of "America the Beautiful." He may not be a prizewinning vocalist but we can be struck by the comparative simplicity of the song.

It might be easy for someone disapproving of Romney to mock his performance. Actually you're asking to be mocked when you just hold up a microphone and sing without accompaniment. I consider his singing to be quite passable. Now let's see the tax returns.

I remember Larry Storch on "Laugh-In" playing the role of Americus Vespucius, the early explorer. "Americus" is the basis for "America." Storch presented an alternate history. He asked his crew to join him with singing this neat new song, honoring the new-found country. Only it was "Vespucia."
What if. . .

Ronald Reagan talked with reverence about the song "Born in the U.S.A." but it seemed he hadn't explored the lyrics. Only the title suggests it's a real patriotic song. (Cheech and Chong sang "Born in East L.A." to the same melody.)

Lee Greenwood renews his celebrity status every few years when America is dealt a crisis. His "Proud to be an American" gets trotted out, he gets interviewed on Fox News etc.

"Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a fine patriotic anthem. It came to be associated with the North with the end of the Civil War, as opposed to "Dixie." I'm told bands in the Deep South played "Dixie" to counter the national anthem for many years.

Jim Bouton in "Ball Four," writing about the "rebel" nickname in the South, asserted "Why don't they let that stuff die with their grandfathers?"

Shall we let the Star Spangled Banner die in favor of a simpler tune, with less war imagery? Listening to Mitt Romney sing (and I'm not mocking) makes us wonder.

A person of average or below average musical ability ought to be able to handle it. And if you're still playing trumpet, make sure you let the spit out. Arrrgh.

- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com