Major League Baseball must permanently retire ‘God Bless America,’

[GMDino]

(07-03-2016, 12:42 PM)Nately120 Wrote: It depends on the version and the arrangement.  I spent 8 years in HS and college choirs and had to sing the thing with the ensemble many-a-time, but it was meticulously arranged for our voice parts and was therefore logical to sing.  Normally (er...I think) you have either one person singing it in its common arrangement for one voice, which has the technical leaps of high and low notes, and it's usually woman SO your option is to sing with her or take it down an octave.  If a group is singing it they don't just stick to the unison main arrangement, which probably just confuses people and leads them to stay quiet.

I was at a baseball game with my gf at the time and my buddy and I was singing a tenor harmony along with the main vocal part and people were looking at me like I was mocking the song so I stopped and just stood there.  

I'll just quote what he said, as I know nothing of music despite being in a choir and being able to carry a tune:

Quote: I actually don't agree with this. And we all know that I'm not some God preaching conservative....but I don't mind the song. From a lyrics standpoint the song is trite. Not Berlin's finest work. From a music analysis point of view the chord progressions are generic. They are expected. Again...not Berlin's best work. But it's no more self righteous than England's "God Save the Queen." It's part of our patriotism. I think the author is being self righteous when he accepts that it was ok to sing it after 911 but not now. Why stop?

But while I'm up here on the soap box....I believe that our national anthem is HORRIBLE!!!! A national anthem should not be a song that provides controversy...and ours certainly does...because of the way it is sung. It is simply a hard song to sing therefore it can't be sung well by the masses. Case in point...have you seen in the news about the woman who sang it impromptu at the Lincoln Memorial last week and is now getting her 15 minutes of fame? Every time I see a news segment about her I cringe. She didn't sing it....she screamed the national anthem. She embellished it to the point where she actually changed the melody....like so many do....just so they can show off (talk about self righteous?!?!). I believe that our national anthem should be the song that we all learned in elementary school....My Country Tis of Thee. It's nice. It's singable. And even Roseann Barr could sing it at a ballgame without being offensive! But that's my two cents worth.