Howdy!

For all those of you who are interested -- I spent a little time tinkering
around with my wonderful new Sibelius software, and transcribed the awesome and
in my opinion best ever rendition of the Star Spangled Banner by the Dixie
Chicks, to a musical score. Available to anyone, for free, as a 31kB pdf file.
For the diehards, I can also offer an mp3 recording of the synthesizer voice
generated rendition of the score. That mp3 file is nowhere near the real Chicks
or any real live voice, but interesting to listen to, and it is absolutely
accurate to the written score.

Couple of additional comments:
1.. I wrote the score based upon what I hear and what I think the Chicks are
singing (Super Bowl XXXVII, 2003, and there's also a beautiful studio recording
- both can be heard on Youtube). May well be that I got some of the lead or
supporting vocals wrong - don't hold it against me please. I listened and
compared notes again tonight and got out a couple of glitches, may well be that
I got it wrong in places.
2.. There are slight differences between the studio version and the live
version: (a) the studio version is completely a capella (without orchestra or
band) by contrast to the live version and (b) in the live version, based upon
what I see, Martie and Emily do not join Natalie in the first two bars. There
may be more differences. I primarily listened to the studio version.
3.. Parts of the score - especially the harmony vocals / second soprano (sung
by Martie) go to incredible heights - so much so, in fact, that accordingly to
Sibelius, they cannot humanly be sung by a soprano and are accordingly reflected
in red in the program. You cannot see that in the printed version, by the way.
Well, all I can say is, Martie gets the job done.
4.. I am not a super expert on copyright law, but I do not believe there are
concerns about potential infringements of copyrights here - the original song
and lyrics by Francis Scott Key have obviously been in the public domain for
centuries, and the Dixie Chicks have copyright in their particular and unique
arrangement.
Let me know if you are interested and I will happily send it to you.

In the meantime, have a great weekend everyone!

Peter

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