Download PDF of The Star Spangled Banner

Download PDF of full score and parts for marching band of The Star Spangled Banner

I have mixed feelings about our National Anthem. Francis Scott Key’s intention in writing the words it was, in part to proclaim victory over slaves who tried to escape in British ships during the War of 1812, and nowadays it is still very often used in offensively chauvinistic ways, ways that reinforce a kind of overbearing, masculine and militaristic ideal of what it means to be an American, and ideal that excludes women, gay men (really all LGBTQ people), native Americans and anybody who does not ally themselves with football. Still, the tune (which predates Keys’s words) is magnificent, and the sentiment in the first verse speaks to our hope that our Flag and the American ideals that it stands for will somehow withstand the shadows of oppression that are shadowing our land. Yeah, I do actually love the song. We know that the origins of our national ideals are often marred by the unthinking racism of the founders, but they laid down ideas that were a transition from the brutality of their times and have been a foundation for the liberal tradition of the past two and a half centuries.

Here is the Navy Band playing the Star Spangled Banner. (I need to listen to their arrangement carefully and see if I can’t improve the version for band given above).

Here is a really fantastic choral version by the Kentucky All-State Choir at their annual convention. It is very slow because the space they are in is so reverberant.