Violin Solo of The Star Spangled Banner
Here is an arrangement of the United States national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner for solo violin. This violin solo is arranged for the late intermediate or advanced student. The technique needed in the left hand for the double-stop and triple stops would place this at a Level 6. The player will need to be comfortable playing in first and third positions as this arrangement uses double stops to provide the harmony.
Opportunities to Perform
Use this violin solo of “The Star Spangled Banner” to bring your string program or studio attention at events where the national anthem is needed. There are school and community sporting events, plays and productions, school flag raising ceremonies are all occasions where the anthem is played. Why not have a live performance rather than listen to a recording? Also check with local Veterans groups as there are often opportunities at different ceremonies and events that they hold throughout the year. Our national holidays of Flag Day, Independence Day, Veterans Day, and even Labor Day are times that we hear “The Star Spangled Banner” sung or played. This is a great way to help our students remember and honor those who have paid a great price for our liberty.
The Story of the Star Spangled Banner
Francis Scott Key, a young lawyer, penned these lines September 13, 1814:
Oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’re the land of the free, and the home of the brave.
The flag that Key saw flying over Ft. McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland is kept in the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. To learn more about the story surrounding the writing of the national anthem. Check out these resources:
Lyrics
O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming,
Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?
And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?
On the shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, half conceals, half discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines in the stream:
‘Tis the star-spangled banner, O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion,
A home and a country, should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave:
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave,
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.
O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation.
Blest with vict’ry and peace, may the Heav’n rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto: ‘In God is our trust.’
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave![47]
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