U.Play.Plus: Pops: Trumpet Book

These arrangements capture the exact songs your students actually want to play, from Billie Jean to Don't Stop Believing, without dumbing down the harmony or rhythm. The flexibility to use any combination of brass, woodwinds, and strings means you can program this book regardless of your ensemble's makeup, and the two-line score design makes it genuinely playable for trumpets at the 2.5-3 grade level.

Energetic and immediately familiar. These are songs that live in your students' ears already, whether from radio, streaming, or film. The arrangements honor each song's original character while giving trumpet players a voice that feels natural in the mix, neither buried nor overshadowing the groove.

Trumpet players in intermediate band, jazz band, or pop ensemble settings who are ready to tackle contemporary repertoire with real harmonic substance. This book works for school ensemble programs, competitive small group settings, and any director looking to engage students with music they recognize and genuinely want to perform.

• Pay attention to how line B functions both as a duet partner to the melody and as a harmony line; this balance shapes your phrasing and dynamics relative to whoever else is playing.
• Reference the rhythm section accompaniment track early in rehearsal so you hear how your part sits in the groove, especially important for pop and rock repertoire where pocket and feel matter as much as notes.
• Use the cue notes written into your part to anticipate harmonic movement when other instruments are missing; this trains your ear to understand the complete arrangement.
• Tune to the included B-flat concert note before rehearsing, then lock into the demonstration track to build confidence with the material before adding live accompaniment.

Build a full concert or assembly program by mixing these pop and rock titles with classical or jazz selections; the flexible instrumentation means you can feature different combinations of your ensemble across numbers. The shorter titles also work well as season openers or building blocks for a themed concert (rock history, Harry Potter medley, etc.).

• reading flexible ensemble scores with multiple harmonic lines (A, B, C, D parts)
• balancing unison melody against supporting harmony in real time
• locking into groove and pocket with rhythm section accompaniment
• transposing and reading cue notes to anticipate missing instrumental parts
• interpreting stylistic articulation and phrasing in pop and rock idioms