Posted on 06/06/2012 7:57:19 AM PDT by TexasCajun
PRESS (11:31:) … But it’s an abomination. First it ranges two octaves most people can only do kind of one octave. I mean when you think about it, it’s bombs bursting in air rocket’s red glare it all kinds of, you know a lot of national anthems are that way, all kinds of military jargon and the land there’s only one phrase ‘the land of the free’ which is kind of nice and ‘the home of the brave?’ I don’t know.
OGBURN: I mean I get that part.
PRESS: Are we [Americans] the only ones who are brave on the planet? I mean all the brave people live here. I mean it’s just stupid I think. I’m embarrassed, I’m embarrassed every time I hear it.
The real abomination is the many idiots that personalize it before ball games, races, etc.
I had the opportunity to confront one of these twits after he mangled the anthem with his crooning before a Red Sox game.
While he was standing around expecting handshakes and "atta-boys" I approached him and said, "That was the most disgusting crap I have ever heard in my life. Why don't you stick to singing I'm a Little Teapot?"
Blame Jose Feliciano.
People like him—who are void of God—are self-loathing and need to tear down everyone and anything of worth and goodness, so they don’t feel so insignificant and worthless.
He is irrational and mentally ill.
Yes, and the far too many people who sing it at a tempo more appropriate for a funeral march.
There’s no reason we couldn’t have two national anthems. In peacetime, an innocuous, easy-to-sing bit of fluff like “America the Beautiful” to keep all the cuddle-bunnies like Bill Press from being too psychologically traumatized.
In time of war or serious national danger, we revert to the Star Spangled Banner to raise morale and fighting spirit, much as we dusted off all the original verses of the Battle Hymn of the Republic for a few months after 9/11.
I wonder if the fat mullah sitting by George Bush at the memorial service a few nights afterward realized what a weighty call to our national history and character was carried in the words “As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free”.....
That’s a keeper,
He's also musically wrong - the SSB is not two octaves. It technically speaking is one octave and a half, but that is a little deceptive because the area where most of the melody lies (the "tessitura") is within an octave. It's not hard to sing.
What catches people unawares is that the third note is an outlier - well out of the tessitura. But everybody's natural tendency is to put the first few notes of a melody smack in the middle of the tessitura -- if you do that on this melody you will run out of room at the top, even if you have a 2 1/2 octave range. Just hum the first three notes, put the third note at the absolute bottom of your range, and then hum backwards to find the starting note.
See, wasn't that easy? The SSB will never bother you again.
Everyone needs to know what a total ass Bill Press is.
That's really interesting. I had thought its range was 2 octaves as well—and I've been telling people that for years, too, and no one's ever called me on it—but after reading this thread and your post, I actually piano'd it out. Lo and behold, you're absolutely correct: it's merely an octave and a fifth. Colour me surprised.
Press is right about one thing, though: for an inexperienced singer, it is a difficult song (as compared to our "O Canada," which has a range of one octave). And the reason is, as you said, that people tend to pitch it too high to begin with, because it starts out low.
Give leftist pukes Bill Press enough rope, and we will have to drop the land of the free part.
And if they still taught kids to sing it in grade school, it wouldn't be such an awful surprise.
The definitive bad performance, however, is in Brewster McCloud. Sung by Margaret Hamilton, of all people.
Conor, he's an ultra-liberal radio talk show host. No clue where he is now (and I'm not going to look him up because I wouldn't give him the clicks), but some years ago he had a talk show on KFI in Los Angeles. To say he was unlistenable was an understatement. His show didn't last too long -- it was a complete failure and cancelled for lack of ratings. IIRC he tucked his tail between his legs and hightailed it back for the east coast.
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