At an LA Galaxy professional soccer game at Stubhub center (on the CSUDH campus). https://twitter.com/LAGalaxy/status/1044024920093515776?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1044068315591659520 Her name is Malea Emma Tjandrawidjaja, she's Indonesian-American.
I like the National Anthem, but I thought this version was hokey and contrived. But maybe better than Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock.
She screwed it up. Big time. There is a common mistake that most people make when singing the national anthem: It occurs at the second-to-last line, “Oh say, does that star-spangled banner yet waive…” The correct way of singing the word banner is in two notes. Most people tend to sing the word, incorrectly, in three notes, bah-ah-ner, sliding upward on the first syllable. In other words, if you’re in the key of C, you incorrectly sing banner as D-E-F in two 1/8 notes and one 1/4 note. The correct way is to sing bah-ner in two 1/4 notes with D going directly to F. So, this kid was full of flash and style (she would make a great Broadway belter), but in the test that is always used to judge a performance of The Star Spangled Banner, she – and her music teacher – flunked. So, the next time you’re watching a football (or any other) game when a young protégée or prominent so-called star sings the Banner, you now know what to listen for in order to judge whether it’s a musically correct performance.
