Rally Music

With rallies and protests growing in the USA in 2025, I have been taking part in playing music at rallies & marches. Together with fellow horn & percussion players, we play classic Americana — the patriotic or classic songs that you probably learned in grade school. We get the crowd energized, marching and singing along, feeling like part of something bigger, feeling connected to previous generations of Americans who stood up in dark times.

I’ve learned a lot from playing with trumpetist Joe Niemczura, who has several great blog posts about this approach: “About playing music at Political rallies” and “Music plan for Brass Band,” among others.

I’ve been trying to convince more friends to join us, and some replied that they aren’t great at playing by ear. So I’ve put together lead sheets / fake books for a lot of the music we play. These just have the melody and chords — no other harmonies or rhythms written out — but it’s enough to let you play along, and you can use the chords to improvise harmonies or solos if you’re brave 🙂

  • I’ve tried to make sure everything’s in reasonable ranges and correctly transposed for the most common instruments. (For example, if a song is in the key of Bb for trombones and flutes, it’s written in the key of C for Bb trumpet players.) If I am missing a transposition you need, or if I got your instrument’s range wrong, please let me know and I can add or edit as needed.
  • I believe all of these songs are in the public domain. But if I’ve incorrectly posted something that is still copyrighted, please let me know and I’ll be happy to take it down.

Bb Trumpet

Trombone