WHAT!
Dammit, I can’t
do everything, though I’d be happy to delegate, but really! Whoever imagined
that I’d have to check in on the damned national anthem now and again—or maybe
even daily—just to make sure that nobody had altered the time signature?
OK—for those of
you who had better things to do in your childhood than study classical music,
here’s the skinny. Most music is divided into measures, and most measures have
a basic pulse or beat. That’s why you tap your feet when somebody is singing.
And these measures are either duple or triple—or some variant thereof. Consider
a tune you know: Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star. There’s a natural stress every four notes (with the third note being
slightly stressed as well). Since four is two times two, the time signature is
duple.
A triple form?
Think Greensleeves, which has a
natural stress every six beats, with a slight stress on the fourth beat. Since
six is a multiple of three, it’s a triple time signature.
And the national
anthem? It is triple, not duple.
I tell you this
because a friend, a professional flutist, on Facebook posted an article
by Anne Midgette of
The Washington Post about Renée Fleming’s
performance of the national anthem at the Super Bowl. Well, I listened
and was impressed, but then I usually am with Renée—she’s impossible not to
like. And I think she struck a nice balance: there’s nothing worse than an
opera singer pretending to be pop. First, it’s ridiculous; second, it reveals
profound insecurity. You’ve spent years learning your art, and you chicken out
for a sports event? Come on!
Reading the
comments was revealing as they so often are. And one comment from Phillip Bush in particular caught my eye:
The real question re the arrangement, etc., is something I find
surprising nobody talks about much: have you noticed that the national anthem
(at least in Super Bowl versions) has been altered to 4/4 time? Fleming's
version, sadly, was no exception though she did revert to 3 in the final lines
(beginning with "oh say does that." Just to see if I was imagining
things, I listened to all versions since 2008 and only Carrie Underwood in 2010
sang the anthem in 3 all the way through. (It should be added that Christina
Aguilera's version in 2009 defies all attempts at metric--or pitch---analysis.)
Clearly
a man I could call my brother! Any man who cares enough to hear seven years of
our national anthem—OK, but you know what I mean—is obviously my match for
neuroticism. Because I have spent most of the match scratching my head and
listening to bourrées, gavottes, loures, minuets trying to figure out
what dance form the damn Star-Spangled
Banner is, or rather was.
Although
it may not be—the Star-Spangled Banner
may be based simply on a song composed in 1778 for the Anacreontic Society,
a group of amateur musicians in London. And yes, the boys liked a spot of ale
or beer when getting together; it might be a little unfair to categorize the
national anthem as a “drinking song,” if only because most people, especially
drunk, can’t sing the song.
The
song is called To Anacreon in Heaven,
and it turned out my hunch was right: the original song is sung considerably
faster than anyone sings the national anthem today. And as a cellist who has
played the Bach solo
suites for forty years—wow, and shouldn’t I play them better, after all
those years? Oh well….
Anyway,
here’s the thing: the suites contain stylized but still recognizable dances
that were common at the time. And I swear, To
Anacreon in Heaven sounds like one of those dances—I can see people in
their elaborate gowns and their stiff, formal gestures dancing to it. And the
dotted upbeat—the “Oooh” before you land happily on “say”—that’s the tip off!
So
I spent the morning with bourrées, gavottes, loures and minuets, and what did I learn?
Nothing
definitive, though I can tell that the base for the Star-Spangled Banner is definitely triple, not duple. Here’s a
photo of an edition of 1790:
Right—so who got
the bright idea of changing the time signature of our national anthem from ¾
(essentially) to 4/4?
I’m sorry to say
that it was Whitney
Houston—and I would rather hear chalk scratching on the chalkboard than
hear Whitney Houston. But it seemed that Houston thought the national anthem
was too “waltz-like.” So Rickey
Minor, Houston’s musical director, and Houston tinkered around. Here’s
what Minor said:
“The original version is in 3/4 time, which is more like a
waltz,” Minor explained. “What we tried to do was to put it in 4/4 meter… We
wanted to give her a chance to phrase it in such a way that she would be able
to take her time and really express the meaning.”
Well,
I went out, bought an anti-emetic, waited an hour, and then braved my way
through Houston’s lip-synched 1991 performance; yes, I gagged but didn’t retch.
My
other reaction to Ms. Midgette’s article?
A
surprising number of readers thought she was being backhanded, snide, or
hypercritical. Though I agreed with the most recent comment, from RAMJ:
I just want to hear the anthem sung straight, the way we sang it
in grade school. We were made to feel that it was a serious song with great
meaning. There was no embellishment allowed.
The simple notes provide ample challenge to most any voice,
trained or untrained. There is beauty in their starkness. I love that only the
gods can help the person that starts singing our anthem in the wrong key.
I cringe at the current rate of embellishment and self-aggrandizement
the anthem has been burdened with. I actually avoid listening, because I know
it will be painful.
YES!
Finally,
Kurt Vonnegut wandered
into my brain, and what was it he had written about the Star-Spangled Banner? Well, here it is:
There were one quadrillion nations in the Universe, but the
nation Dwayne Hoover and Kilgore Trout belonged to was the only one with a
national anthem which was gibberish sprinkled with question marks.
Of
course, that wasn’t the way I remembered it. My version had it that the Star-Spangled Banner is the only
national anthem that ends with a question—or rather, a constant, never-ending
challenge as well as quest: does that star spangl’d banner yet wave over the
free and the brave?
Your
choice—just sing the damn thing in ¾!
