Targeting the Anthem’s High Notes : Music: A minister says his version of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ is easier to sing and ishoping Congress will feel the same.

The Rev. Lucian Robinson Jr. considers himself a patriot and means no offense to God, country or Francis Scott Key, but he believes “The Star-Spangled Banner” is too doggone difficult to sing.

So, Robinson has rewritten a few bars of the national anthem and added some words so folks at sporting events and patriotic gatherings can easily sing the song written by Key, the Washington lawyer who witnessed the Battle of Ft. McHenry on Sept. 13, 1814, and penned a poem to celebrate the event.

“I’ve had this thing in my mind that people don’t sing the national anthem well. I didn’t set out to change it, but I was inspired,” Robinson said. “I was hanging my flag last Labor Day. I walked into the house, sat down at the piano and this tune came out.

“It lowers those high notes from an F to a D. That makes it easier for most guys. The change puts it in a sharp key, which brightens it,” Robinson said. “It makes it more singable.”

Robinson, a 50-year-old minister at the North Raleigh Christian Church, asked Rep. David Price (D-N.C.) for help in getting Congress to make the revised anthem the law of the land.

Price, according to spokeswoman Joann Ewing, forwarded the sheet music to House Speaker Tom Foley, who shipped it to the House parliamentarian.

The music was designated House Petition No. 154 and sent to the House Committee on Postal Operations for consideration.

“We certainly appreciate his creativity. The congressman is happy to have submitted it and we are waiting to hear from the chairman of the committee to see what steps are needed to take now,” Ewing said.

The problem, as Robinson sees it, lies in 12 notes found in the 17th measure of “The Star-Spangled Banner”--the part that begins with the words, “And the rocket’s red glare.”

“I didn’t arrange it for singers, but for the crowd at the games,” Robinson said. “It’s not hard to sing based on the tune. It’s easy to remember, but it’s too high.

“I’m a real patriot. I’ve tried not to change the spirit of the song,” he said.

But Susan Klebanow, choral director at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, says the new arrangement has some problems.

“This looks like a good arrangement, but it’s not just changing a couple of notes. It has new text,” Klebanow said. “It changes keys in the middle. He does a masterful job, but musically to begin in one key and end in another is not kosher.

“I would say for a certain purpose it would be fine, but I can’t imagine Congress will change the national anthem to this,” Klebanow said. “He goes to a lower key for a transition. The transition is very well done, but it totally changes the structure of the song.”

Key’s version was written in B flat major. Robinson changed the key to G major.

The transition consists of nine words that take the singer to a lower key for the hard-to-sing phrase. The words added are, “The inspiration of that morn is with us still.”

“To add new text, even a couple of bars of melody, is a pretty big change. This is not quite ‘The Star-Spangled Banner,”’ Klebanow said. “It’s not Francis Scott Key’s work. If you were to do this to a living composer’s work, it would be hard to imagine he or she would approve it.”

The source of the problem is a man named John Stafford Smith, choirmaster at Westminister Abbey in London in the late 1700s. He also was a member of a gentleman’s club called the Anacreontic Society, named for the Greek poet Anacreon, who lived in Ionia from 563-478 B.C.

Smith wrote a song called “To Anacreon in Heaven” as the theme song for the club, which met at the Crown and Anchor Tavern. It’s the tune of that song to which Key wrote the words for “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

“Smith was a tenor and a choirmaster. He wrote this for this group of men to sing antiphonally. He was not envisioning the same man singing the song,” Robinson said.

A song is sung antiphonally when two or more groups sing alternating verses, such as tenor then alto.

“It didn’t come to America as a tavern song. It came as a political tune,” Robinson said. “It was the Adams and Liberty song, the Jefferson and Liberty song. It was a well-known tune before Key wrote the poem.”

According to history, President James Madison gave permission near the end of the War of 1812 for Key and Washington lawyer John Skinner to negotiate with the British for the release of a prisoner named Dr. William Beanes of Upper Marlborough, Md.

The British agreed to release Beanes, but kept Key, Skinner and Beanes aboard a vessel while forces attacked Fort McHenry, which protected the city of Baltimore.

Key paced the deck of the vessel all night, watching the flash of cannon fire. About 7 a.m. the next day, Key saw the stars and stripes still waving over Ft. McHenry. He wrote the poem to commemorate that historic moment.