I just completed another big band composition for middle school level. Since I wrote this one for my friend Tyson Hamrick’s group at Owen Middle School, I called it Tyson Tunes Up. It’s a rhythm changes chart in the key of F with lots of riffs and a few quotes of other familiar tunes also using rhythm changes. I wanted to write something that would be a good introduction to these very common jazz changes. Here’s a MIDI realization of the chart. See if you can name all of the quotes.
Like I did with my last middle school big band chart, Blackhawk Blues, I left the solo section in the MIDI file without a placeholder solo so that students could use it as a practice track. If you want to download a copy to practice improvising over rhythm changes in F, here’s the file.
