Introducing New Trumpet Arrangements
Check out my growing list of new trumpet arrangements
Published
12th May 2026
It's been some time since I last posted and there's been a lot going on at my end: primarily,
the recording of multiple arrangements for trumpet and their associated backing tracks so other musicians can play along.
The aim of these arrangements is to extend the repertoire for trumpet at a rate of one every week or so (and play my favourite music!). These arrangements are divided between public domain classics and popular/jazz cover songs, the latter remain copyright to their original rights-holders.
When it comes to public domain arrangements, it's up to the arranger whether or not to make those copyright to themselves or choose a creative commons licence. I've chosen to make mine freely available under a creative commons licence. That means that like my original scores, the creative commons scores are available to download direct from my site both as PDFs and as MuseScore files.
Of the limited number of public domain scores I have so far recorded, Bach's Air on the G String is the favourite, at least you YouTube, enjoying over 400 views.
When it comes to dealing with cover song arrangements, the rules of copyright require that arrangements made by others (including myself) remain copyright to the original rights-holders. This situation promted me to begin publishing these cover arrangements through ArrangeMe which publishes to SheetMusicDirect and SheetMusicPlus. By law this is the only way I can legally share these scores (as they pay a licence to the rights-holders), and there are minimum fees set by the system.
While this is a new focus for me, there is already a range of styles from classics like Herb Alpert's legendary 'Rise' to the more recent 'When' by Susann Sundfor and one of my old favourites, 'Foolish Games' by Jewel, which is my most flexible arrangement yet, able to be used with both string and brass.
I have included the Siciliana from Telemann's Trumpet Concerto in Ab as a cover for convenience though technically there are no other recordings of this concerto that I could find.
In fact AI claims: "Based on the search results, there is no widely recognized Trompetenkonzert (Trumpet Concerto) in As-Dur (A-flat major) by Georg Philipp Telemann."
The score has no TWV number. According to Wikipedia this is likely because: "Telemann was highly prolific, writing over 3,000 compositions, and about half of his total output was lost. Many manuscripts, particularly those not in major archives, have not yet been assigned a number." Puts my efforts into perspective, lol.
The sole supplier for this score appears to be SheetMusicPlus (from which I purchased mine). It supplies the score under the name 'Konzert As-Dur' as a special order item.
I got permission from the friendly publisher to record the concerto: "No need of licence… we give you permission to release it on streaming platforms. The only thing we would ask is that you send us the recording as MP3 and a YouTube link if you have it, so that we can add it on our website."
I have made my production of the piano accompaniment for the Siciliana available as a backing track for others to play with, (as well as the recording with trumpet) which brings me to my next innovation, providing videos with backing tracks.
I am providing backing tracks for all new arrangements and also links to the scores as published at SheetMusicDirect/SheetMusicPlus or where it is public domain, from my site.
Just a note about the intermediate arrangements I am publishing.
While they are (I believe) technically intermediate that is not to say that they are not demanding.
The long phrases of the many slow ballads, with no breaks to rest the embouchure, and the sustained notes require a lot of breath. This can be taxing.
In other news, after the first batch of recordings I found myself a microphone which I'm finding much easier to work with. The Shure PGA98H clip microphone is proving to be far superior to the ribbon mic. The clip on means that I can move freely when I play and the mic is always in the same place in relation to my bell.
It also provides a better sound and I am a lot happier with the results. Where the ribbon mic does seem necessary is in recording flute. I can turn the gain right up on my audio interface [which joins the mics to my laptop] so I can play freely and don't have to be standing over the mic. This seems superior to trying to attach a mic to my flute. The Shure PGA98H is not suitable for this task and when tested playing into it (attached to my stand) it recorded more of the breath sounds you don't want.
I also added a filter to the results by instrument to help users sort through the many results.
In other news, I found out about this composition competition run by Australia's McCaffery family and am working toward an entry for it when I find a spare moment. All in all, I am keeping myself very busy and currently working on Bach's Arioso.
