TKat wrote: }And to the singers who think à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The Star Spangled Bannerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  is a easy song to sing, you must be really talented and should audition for American Idol. It is a really hard song to sing, it covers 19 steps from lowest to highest note. And you need to hit the high notes with some power or it has not impact.
This is from a very well respected vocal coach:

If they already know that their personal range is only an octave, and that the specific song they want to sing spans an octave PLUS 7 half steps, then they would be better off declining that offer because the song is going be entirely OUT of their comfort zone. Even lowering the whole song will not help here because the range of the song is outside of the singerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s personal range. This is why we hear so many sad renditions of The Star Spangled Bannerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  at local sports events. The song has a larger range or à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“tessituraà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  than the singerà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s.’”

Hey, I know it’s not the easiest song in the world!

But, for me, I can bet that it would be way way easier than something like “No Boundaries,” simply because it is melodic enough to allow you to just sing it in a relaxed, low-key manner if you’re willing to do that. No Boundaries simply doesn’t allow that, seems to me — you have to push and punch and wail on that one to make it sound even halfway decent. But you don’t have to do that with the anthem, unless you want to, is my point. It’s nice on its own. It allows you to do a credible — not great, just credible! — performance that’s very simple and not pushy or flashy but expresses the words.

Disclaimer: I’ve sung classical repertoire almost entirely and a lot of what I’ve sung is 20th-century, atonal stuff, stuff with no set meter, so my sense of what’s difficult is probably different from most people’s perceptions of that — I mean, maybe No Boundaries doesn’t seem tough to pop singers. Does to me, though! And since I’ve done so much stuff that has little conventional melody, a nice melodic 18th century tune seems less hard than some things. Plus, you get to sing into a mic, so you don’t have to try to project to the back end of the auditorium all on your own!

Anyway, I know that people say you have to really be able to hammer at those top notes in the anthem, but in my opinion you really don’t! Seems to me from my experience that if you simply are able to open your mouth and let the notes out clearly while giving a heartfelt reading of the lyrics, that’s enough. (Not great, not Whitney, but enough.)(I’ve done this myself, and I’ve advised others to do it, and it’s worked out okay — that’s all I can say. Granted, nobody was at an NBA final.)

On the issue of the range, well, truly, if you don’t have at least an octave and a half in easy notes to reach, you shouldn’t be on American Idol, should you? I have to say that this is one of my reservations about Kris –I don’t think he has a very big usable range when he is nervous or tired or whatever. I hear him straining high and low at times, though not always. I think he needs training so that he can reach his notes without doing that, but I know it’s also quite possible to compensate for the smaller range with songwriting skills and other stuff.

That said, if he relaxes and doesn’t try to do anything spectacular with it, I don’t see why he can’t do one of those low-key renditions of the anthem that really focus on the words and just simply sing it. You hear country singers do those a lot. And Kris is good at the heartfelt, and that’s what people want in the anthem, more than anything.

Having heard him say that he hasn’t sung it before concerns me a bit. You definitely need to have internalized the song to have a prayer of just relaxing into it and expressing it. We’ll see, I guess. One way or another, he’s going to be asked to sing the anthem plenty more times — that’s a big way for the Idols to get exposure, it seems — so he’d better learn to do it!