Kevin Hilman

My usual gig is playing trumpet in a local orchestra but I have a new music project with which I could use some advice. I am putting together a small rock band with horns to play cover tunes for sporting events. Kind of like a mini-pep band. The instrumentation for this group is drums, bass guitar, electric guitar, trumpet, tenor sax, and trombone. I am playing the bass guitar in this group and am doing most of the arrangements.
My problem is that the trumpet and tenor sax parts keep ending up in horrible keys since so much of the rock lit gravitates to concert E, A, and D. For example...one of the tunes we're doing is "That Thing You Do!" from the Tom Hanks movie. Although the bass part lays nicely in the key of E Major my poor trumpeter and sax player are going to be stuck in F# Major. The part is playable but is not a joy to play if you get my meaning. I'm writing my arrangements on the Finale Notebook program which does not allow you to deviate from standard tunings on the guitar/bass tabs. If it did, I would probably try to solve my problem by tuning the bass down to Eb, Ab, Db, and Gb and the guitar accordingly. Do any of you know of a music notation program that does allow for altered tunings of the guitar parts? Or...do any of you have suggestions on how to write better arrangements or any suggested books I could read on the subject?

Thanks,

Kevin