The Star Spangled Banner

Yet another ultra-low budget jamming Guitar web cam video recorded with my Marshall Lead 12 amp and a real cheesy 50 cent PC microphone. ...
Here we have a little bit of fun on guitar with the United States National Anthem "Star Spangled Banner" Enjoy!
This video is a few years old (and one of these days I will make some new ones) and has been the subject of some controversy (world politics and all that jazz..!)

Here is the link for feed readers that do not embed video

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"The Star Spangled Banner"

And while we are here I thought it might be good to include the link to download the mp3 of "The Star Spangled Banner" featuring Rick Schlosser on the drums..!

This arrangement is taken from the original John Philip Sousa score of "The Star Spangled Banner" circa 1892 provided by the Library of Congress website written and performed at the Chicago Worlds Fair.... With many modern guitar tones taking the brass and string lines, I truly hope you enjoy listening to this!

Without making 'to much' of a political statement the ending portrays the afterburners of an f-18 fighter jet soaring into the heavens..! )

About the project::
This recording project was very interesting as I had to analyze the orchestral score and harmonic structure of the piece and logically break-up the score into smaller sub-sections and then decide on what type of guitar tones would best bring out the lines.
In most instances, I had tracked the parts a minimum of 3 times to get a thick orchestrated sound.
The piece was divided into 3 main sections composed of Horns, Strings and Woodwinds..
At any given point in the track you will be hearing a culmination of at least 70 tracks of guitar..!

Gear::
On this selection I fittingly used my Fender Stratocaster refinished by Jim Tyler and the Line6 Flextone3 XL amp...

About "The Star Spangled Banner" ::
There is little basis for the legend that the tune of our national anthem was an old English drinking song. On the other hand, there is strong evidence that the members of the club for which the music was originally composed, the Anacreontic Society, frequently lifted not only their voices but also their cups in song.

In the mid-1760s, a London society of amateur musicians, the Anacreontic Society, commissioned a young church musician, John Stafford Smith, to compose music for material written by its president, Ralph Tomlinson. Smith's tune, entitled "Anacreon in Heav'n," was a vehicle not only for the Society's accomplished amateurs, but for its best baritone singer to display virtuosity through an astounding vocal range. Its musical complexity has been compared to that of the famous "Toreador Song" in Bizet's opera Carmen.

First published in England, the tune appeared in North America before the end of the eighteenth century where, as often happened, new lyrics -- including "Adams and Liberty" and "Jefferson and Liberty" -- were written. The song's appeal may have been due at least in part to its unique metrical structure. Not found in any other song of the period, its striking meter may have been what attracted Francis Scott Key. By all accounts tone deaf, Key had already composed one other poem using the meter of the "Anacreontic Song" when he wrote "The Star Spangled Banner."

On September 14, 1814, while detained aboard a British ship during the bombardment of Ft. McHenry, Francis Scott Key witnessed at dawn the failure of the British attempt to take Baltimore. Based on this experience, he wrote a poem that poses the question "Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner yet wave?" Almost immediately Key's poem was published and wedded to the tune of the "Anacreontic Song." Long before the Civil War "The Star Spangled Banner" became the musical and lyrical embodiment of the American flag. During the latter war, songs such as "Farewell to the Star Spangled Banner" and "Adieu to the Star Spangled Banner Forever," clearly referencing Key's song, were published within the Confederacy.

On July 26, 1889, the Secretary of the Navy designated "The Star Spangled Banner" as the official tune to be played at the raising of the flag. And during Woodrow Wilson's presidency, it was chosen by the White House to be played wherever a national anthem was appropriate. Still the song was variously criticized as too violent in tone, too difficult to sing, and, by prohibitionists, as basically a drinking song. But on its side "The Star Spangled Banner" had a strong supporter in John Philip Sousa who, in 1931, opined that besides Key's "soul-stirring" words, "it is the spirit of the music that inspires." That same year, on March 3, President Herbert C. Hoover signed the Act establishing Key's poem and Smith's music as the official anthem of the United States.

The new law, however, did not specify an official text or musical arrangement, but left room for creative arrangements and interpretations of "The Star Spangled Banner." The standard instrumental version was unofficially established as the arrangement used by the U.S. service bands. However, other versions include: Igor Stravinsky's 1941 version for orchestra and male chorus, Duke Ellington's 1948 Cornell University arrangement, Jimi Hendrix's 1969 electric guitar version, José Feliciano's 1968 rendition, and the 1991 version by the St. Louis Symphony under Leonard Slatkin

Lyrics for "The Star Spangled Banner"
Lyrics: Francis Scott Key
(The Defense of Fort McHenry) September 20, 1814

Oh, say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming? And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

On the shore, dimly seen through the mists of the deep, Where the foe's haughty host in dread silence reposes, What is that which the breeze, o'er the towering steep, As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses? Now it catches the gleam of the morning's first beam, In full glory reflected now shines on the stream: 'Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore That the havoc of war and the battle's confusion A home and a country should leave us no more? Their blood has wiped out their foul footstep's pollution. No refuge could save the hireling and slave From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave: And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved homes and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heaven-rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, And this be our motto: "In God is our trust." And the star-spangled banner forever shall wave O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!