When I mean "well" I mean getting all of the notes/pitch, right and knowing the lyric from memory.


47 comments
  1. If you asked me to sing it solo, I’d probably sing on key but start from the wrong point.

    If im singing along, no problem

  2. Not great. I actually have some singing experience, but it’s hard to sing the Star Spangled Banner really well.

  3. I know the words and basic melody. I am also terrible singer and it’s a near-impossible song to sing well, so…

  4. I know the lyrics for the first verse (the only one that gets sung) but I don’t have any vocal control to speak of. My former neighbor who was a music major said I’m not tone deaf because I can pick out songs by ear on the mandolin, I just can’t get my voice to hit those notes. Like I know they’re wrong. so not well.

  5. It’s not in my voice range, nor many people’s range for that matter but I know all the words of the first verse. The rest of the verses I need a lyric sheet.

  6. Pretty well, I guess. I’ve done a few performances before various sports games (high school/college, nothing impressive) and I didn’t get booed out of the stadium. A lot of it comes down to picking the right note to start on.

  7. Getting the lyrics right? 10/10. Everything else you mentioned? Less than that, it’s a hard song and I’m not much of a singer.

  8. One hundred percent.

    When I was 10 years old, I told my mother I wanted to take piano lessons. Our church music director was also a teacher. She said, “I don’t take kids as students.”

    I sat down and played the melody to the Star-Spangled Banner by ear with no music and no mistakes. Then she said, “I don’t **usually** take kids as students.”

  9. I can’t sing ***any*** song “well”, although I know the words to many of them (including the Star Spangled Banner).

  10. Quite well but I also have training and have done it quite a few times (though mostly as part of a choir, only a couple times solo). It’s a surprisingly difficult song. An octave and a half range is no joke and the melody itself can be awkward. My old choir teacher used it as her audition piece to figure out where everyone was going to be placed. Which, at the time, I didn’t really get, but I do now.

  11. I have sung this song every night to my kids. I start with this then “America the Beautiful.”
    My oldest is 14 youngest is 2. So I sing to the littlest ones now. But then the older two were little this has always been my bedtime song selection.

  12. Do I know the notes, pitch, and lyrics? Sure. I know the first verse, at least. I can imagine it in my head.

    Can I sing it? HECK NO!

  13. Very well actually. I have vocal training and along with the choir I’m in sing it before a minor league baseball game about once a year.

  14. Really well. Sometimes I sing it in the car when I’m driving by myself! I’m supposed to stand and put my hand over my heart, but oh, well.

    I will estimate that I am in between Bobby Vinton (who forgot the words, but remembered the tune) and Whitney Houston, who was iconic. Roseanne Barr shall not be mentioned.

  15. Normal people can’t sing it well. It’s why you always need a trained singer to sing it at events

  16. Not at all, maybe, I don’t know? I know some of the words but it’s not like it’s sung everyday in school. Though many schools do say the pledge of allegiance every day or whenever there’s a special event; but the vast majority of cases I’ve seen the National Anthem (the Star Spangled Banner) is mostly sung during sparingly, mostly during special occasions. Then again in during most professional and quasi-professional college sports games it’s always sung; and can be sung before high school (or K-12) sports games though my school growing up didn’t emphasize that because it was a private parochial school.

  17. All four stanzas, no prob. Singing, well, I used to be better. But it’s a difficult drinking tune to begin with.

  18. Very well. Not Whitney Houston well, but enough to be asked to sing it at a sporting event.

  19. I was a choir kid in high school, so I know the melody, a soprano descant that’s probably too high for me now, and two different alto/tenor harmony lines.

    Basically, no matter what key they start in, I can sing along if I want.

  20. *All* the verses. And I can make Kim Jong Un stand, put his hand over his heart, assuming he has one, and cry.

  21. Pretty well. The embellishments is how the song becomes really tricky. And I know the first verse…. which is generally all anyone considers

  22. extremely well. i know all the words, can sing it in multiple different keys, and have done so on innumerable occasions.

  23. I would say most people know the lyrics, some people may mess up a few words here and there. Most people know the tune. The issue when it comes to singing it is hitting the high notes once you get to “and the rockets red glare,” especially if you start too high at the beginning.

  24. Weirdly I walk outside just now and hear the Star Spangled Banner from afar and then see this post. To answer your question whoever is singing sounds pretty mediocre but far better than I could.

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