
Tinderbox Online


Humble Stay (Tinderbox Online Lyric Video)
This recording of a Tinderbox favourite ‘Humble Stay’, written and sung by the incredibly Lydia Bennett was recorded entirely during lockdown on phones and home devices by individual orchestra players while connected over Zoom, and then edited together and mixed by the talented Gary Boyle over at Slate Room Studio.
Inspired by the current limitations enforced by lockdown, Tinderbox Orchestra came together to create this lyric video by indivudally illustrating Lydia’s beautiful words and experiementing with Zoom to create a new kind of music video!
Moving Tinderbox Orchestra online came with unforeseen technical hurdles and complications, but over the summer we persevered, experimented and worked together to be able to continue playing together every week as normal.
As well as rehearsing songs, the orchestra have also been experimenting with trying out different methods of improvisation over video call. A Tinderbox rehearsal in the Jazz Bar typically involves a session of ‘Suggesture’; a method of improvising, conducted using a series of hand gestures that was developed by conductor Mike Kearney. It’s been tricky to translate into a Zoom call, but we’ve been testing out different methods (some of which we showed at our Tinderbox Livestream!)
You can check out more of what the orchestra have been up to online here!

Rock Trust Online
This year marks the sixth anniversary of Tinderbox’s partnership with the Rock Trust, an organisation which works with young people affected by homelessness in and around Edinburgh. Given how established the music group was, we weren’t going to let lockdown stop us working with the young people the Rock Trust supports, so, like so many other organisations, we took to the internet!
For six years, Tinderbox have run a music group in the basement of the Rock Trust building on Albany Street with staff from their drop in service. Whilst the groups have changed over the years – from small groups learning specific instruments to a massive 10-person band – the sense of fun, creativity, and ‘anyone-is-welcome’ has remained constant.
I began working for Tinderbox at the Rock Trust five years ago. Over those years the music people came and went through the music group, some just for a session or two, others for a year or two, all of them eventually moving on to their own accommodation and the rest of their life. In the 6 months before Covid hit, we had a regular group of six young people, with myself and two staff from the Rock Trust. Although coming from very different backgrounds, everyone found a place in our small group, meeting every Monday night. Most people come to the Rock Trust at a time of crisis in their lives, and it was no different for our young people. However, for the two hours in which we met, there was a chance for some respite, and an opportunity to belong. It was also a group with a great deal of humour and fun, the importance of which should not be overlooked. As we wrote songs together; learned pieces that were of importance to those present and sometimes just spoke, we got to know each other.
When the first wave of Covid-19 suddenly hit the UK, things changed rapidly. It was no longer possible to meet face-to-face, and it became apparent just how much of a gap this had left in the lives of our young people who had come each week. But, don’t worry, Tinderbox and the Rock Trust didn’t take long to mobilise! Without much of an idea of what we were doing, we set about bringing the group online. Within two weeks we had set up a Zoom meeting and invited all the former members of the group. Myself, the workers from the Rock Trust, and the participants all had to work it out as we went along, throwing out our session plans, and constantly asking, ‘what if we tried it like this?’. After a while we worked out that the sessions worked best when we mixed up playing/ songwriting/ and quizzes about music, all infused with the enthusiasm, and retaining the atmosphere and humour that had defined the group before lockdown. Four of our young people wrote songs, four of them went on to get their own instrument which they continue to learn, and we played and sang everything – from Slipknot to Eurovision to Elvis. And most of all, we laughed and entertained each other, and kept up our spirits when lockdown and societal ramifications of Covid were at their most isolating.
The Rock Trust Music Group is coming to a break now, looking at starting mid-October with a new influx of participants, as each of our participants has fortunately managed to move onto their own accommodation, or college, and are beginning to stop working with the Rock Trust.
Sam Lowit

Rimo (Tinderbox Online Version)
This recording of the Tinderbox Classic ‘Rimo’ by Luci Holland was recorded entirely during lockdown on phones and home devices by individual orchestra players while connected over Zoom.
Moving Tinderbox Orchestra online came with unforeseen technical hurdles and complications, but over the last few months we’ve persevered, experimented and worked together to be able to continue playing together every week as normal.
We meet together on Zoom every Sunday and have been recording online versions of Tinderbox classics, including Bethany Lane and Rimo – returning to such familiar favourites has allowed us to get used to new ways of playing! We have also been rehearsing a new arrangement of ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ (originally by Whitney Houston), which was put together by the Tinderbox Arranging Group over the last few months.
As well as rehearsing songs, the orchestra have also been experimenting with trying out different methods of improvisation over video call. A Tinderbox rehearsal in the Jazz Bar typically involves a session of ‘Suggesture’; a method of improvising, conducted using a series of hand gestures that was developed by conductor Mike Kearney. It’s been tricky to translate into a Zoom call, but we’ve been testing out different methods (some of which we showed at our Tinderbox Livestream!)

Arranging Group
A number of people in the Tinderbox Orchestra have been meeting up and working on some new arrangements to play during our online Sunday rehearsals.
The group have arranged a great version of Whitney Houston’s 1987 dance-pop classic, ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’, and have some new arrangements in the pipeline.
Arranging music together online has presented some interesting challenges. Each member of the group took on a specific section of the orchestra (e.g. Woodwinds, Strings, Brass, etc.) and worked on their parts over the course of the week, consolidating them during the arranging sessions and fitting them all together.
It was hard to know what other people were creating, and the variations in melody and rhythm throughout the parts created some interesting harmonies and new ways to approach the arrangement.
The orchestra have been working hard to rehearse the arrangement over the last month and a recording will hopefully be ready soon for everyone to listen to, and the group has some exciting new ideas for future projects to work on with the orchestra!
Keep your eyes (and ears) peeled for a recording soon!
Check out what our other Tinderbox Cafes have been up to here!

Music Quiz Night Quiz
The Tinderbox Cafes are online peer-to-peer sessions organised by members of Tinderbox at the beginning of lockdown. They have involved open-mics, musical editing and arrangement sessions, drawing sessions and Quiznights, and have been an amazing way to stay in touch and keep creative!
The ‘Music Quiz Night’ has taken place roughly once a month as a fun, social activity during lockdown. It also gave us the chance to show off some of our more ‘niche’ (some may say useless) music knowledge.
So far, they have been a great success, filled with lots of laughter, a few passionate debates regarding ABBA songs, and have left us questioning whether or not ‘Quiztina Aguilera’- our reigning champs- will ever be beaten.

‘Pome’
pome (noun): a fruit consisting of a fleshy enlarged receptacle and a tough central core containing the seeds, e.g. an apple, pear, or quince.
‘Pome’ is an sonic, poetry-based online game created by Tinderbox Lab Project Manager, Luci Holland, using the game building platform ‘Construct 3’, which the Lab has been exploring over lockdown.
The idea is that you type in your own words, and once you play those and start to move those around, it triggers some sounds that were recorded with the Tinderbox Orchestra.
Have a go for yourself below!
Instructions:
Hit enter/return to start, and start to type your own poem or use the word prompts
Hit enter to end a word/line and trigger a new word prompt
Click and drag set words to arrange your poem and create sound
Click in the top right to save an image of your poem, or double-click to save and restart
Featuring the musical sounds of the Tinderbox Orchestra (recorded as part of another project called Gloam with Biome Collective)
Tweet me @LuciHolland – I’d love to see your poems! #pome

Sights and Sounds of Isolation Collaborative Film – Project Two
Our ‘Sights and Sounds of Isolation Film Project’ began with the goal to create work from our simultaneously separated and collective experience. It aimed to capture all the different things that we were looking at and listening to, and what this time of isolation forced us to focus in on. We gathered images, footage and audio clips and brought these together into collaborative video and sound pieces. You can check out other videos from the project here.
The second outcome was a result of artists Sonia Killmann and Rhona Sword being inspired by this process to make a more focussed and intentional work. Drawing upon the isolating and claustrophobic effects of lockdown, they have been working together to create pieces that aim to capture a sense of more intense intimacy with the natural world that has come from current circumstances.
Created collaboratively, with Sonia first composing a soundscape from found recording and Rhona creating a moving image work in response to this, it utilised their respective disciplines of composition and visual art, and was selected to be included in the ‘Cabin Fever’ art publication.

Bethany Lane (Tinderbox Online Version)

Drawing Group
The drawing group began at the beginning of lockdown as a weekly session where people in Tinderbox could sit together virtually and do some drawing or make artwork, outside of our music rehearsals.
We have taken inspiration for our drawings from things we have seen or enjoyed during lockdown, and have also worked together with the Tinderbox Lab to create some drawings for a level of their game called ‘Chase Out the Bug’ that was based around images of falling food.
The group has been a great way to connect with each other from across the country, and keep creative during lockdown!
Check out what they’ve been up to by clicking the images below!

Chase Out The Bug
During the lockdown the Tinderbox Lab has been running weekly Virtual Studio & Game Development sessions, where young musicians and artists have been getting together to share skills, help keep each other motivated and work on different projects.
Recently the sessions have developed into a game-development project where we have been learning a programme called Construct 3 and making online games together.
‘Chase Out The Bug’ was the first game that the Tinderbox Lab developed online together, and was an exciting and experimental learning process for everyone involved! It was featured at out first Tinderbox Online Gig and is created using artwork from our Lab members as well as our Tinderbox Drawing Group, with sounds from Sonia Killmann.
A huge congratulations to everyone involved in its creation!
You can have a go of the game yourself here!

Tinderbox Tuesdays
Tinderbox Tuesdays is a wee poem about our online Tuesday Hub, written near the start of the lockdown. This is usually our weekly youth club where about 50 children and young people get together to play music and hang out at North Edinburgh Arts, but since the lockdown we have been meeting up online every week for something a bit like an open mic session. It’s been a brilliant way of keeping in touch in this time and great fun and uplifting too.


Sights and Sounds of Isolation Collaborative Film – Project Three
Our ‘Sights and Sounds of Isolation Film Project’ began with the goal to create work from our simultaneously separated and collective experience. It aimed to capture all the different things that we were looking at and listening to, and what this time of isolation forced us to focus in on. We gathered images, footage and audio clips and brought these together into collaborative video and sound pieces. You can check out the other videos from the project here.
The third project is a result of experimenting with the possibilities of online music making and composition, and was produced in conjunction with the Tinderbox Orchestra.
The musciains experimented with improvising in response to each other over Zoom, which allowed composer Sonia Killmann to collect the recordings and mix them into an atmospheric soundscape. This provided the inspiration and framework to create put together a film created from video fragments collected from our lockdown experiences.
Tradition is the Exhibition
A song made by a group of young students from different ethnic backgrounds, with a deep meaning about their lives, their traditions and what is expected of them.
The lyrics and music were written, composed and produced by Ali, Jay, Elijah, Femi, Ken, Arnav, Derek and Rakib.
Lyrics performed by Ali & Jay.
The project was a collaboration with Action for Children Heritage and Inclusion Project.

Musical Asteroids
During Lockdown, the Tinderbox Lab have been working together remotely to learn about online game making software Construct Three, using their skills in visual art, sound and coding to build their own games.
Lab artist Liam Dempsey has also been using the programme to create his own game, Musical Asteroids. For anyone that attended our Room to Play showcase last year, you might remember Liam’s stuffed toys refitted with accelerometers that detect movement and play back sound.
Musical Asteroids sees these ideas progress into an online platform and take on a new form – have a go for yourself here!

Hey Jude – Symphony of a Thousand
Is it possible to get 1000 people playing together online?
On Sunday 21st June, alongside the Music Education Partnership Group (MEPG), we gave it our best shot! You can see the results for yourself here!
Together we played and sang along to the classic Beatles song Hey Jude in an attempt to form the world’s biggest ever online band!
Music, lyrics, a backing track and other resources are still available at: https://wemakemusiconline.weebly.com
The event started with a few practice runs, and then we live-streamed a performance together on facebook for Make Music Day.

Tinderbox Livestream
Our second online gig was streamed live on Facebook on 20th June, 7-8:30pm. We would have been playing at Solas Festival on the very same day, and whilst we were sad not to be there in real life, it was great we can link up and celebrate together online.
The stream featured performances from lots of young musicians and singers, some online orchestral experiments and some amazing guest acts and collaborators, including:
– The Jellyman’s Daughter (Edinburgh’s spellbinding duo, with their beautiful mix of guitar, cello and vocals)
– EBB (6-piece band from The Lodge Arts Collective in Lockerbie – all living together in the same house in lockdown!)
– No Moniker (Edinburgh musician and rapper)
– Jed and Jo (blistering guitar, banjo, fiddle and harmonies)
– DJ Dynamite (bringing us all that funk and soul)
Also featuring:
Imogen, Kuba, Jon, Amelia, Maciej, Simon, Shiloh, Chelsea, Liam, Christopher, Robert and Robert, Action for Children and the Tinderbox Lab.

Tinderbox Online Gig
On Saturday 16th May Tinderbox hosted it’s very first digital gig to celebrate two months of online music making!
The Zoom event featured live performances from a number of our young musicians and collaborators, as well as a first chance to see new videos of the orchestra performing during lockdown. We also managed to show exciting progress on our other interactive media projects that have been taking place.
You can catch the highlights on our Facebook page here:

Over the Rainbow Project
The Music Education Partnership Group organised a “Musical Rainbow” to say thank you to heroes across the country in support of the NHS and all key workers at 8pm Thursday 30th April! Musicians across Scotland joined in with recordings of their performances of the Wizard of Oz classic ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’, and all of us at Tinderbox thoroughly enjoyed having a go and taking part in such a brilliant initiative.
Music Education Partnership Group – MEPG: https://www.facebook.com/mepgscotland
#wmmrainbow

Tinderbox Online
We are continuing to run a number of youth clubs, orchestra rehearsals and other creative workshops online. We’re doing our best to keep in touch with everyone and to keep our wonderful community of young people and musicians together at this challenging time.
Tinderbox Tuesday Hub Online: Our weekly music youth club, usually held at North Edinburgh Arts. We have been getting together every week to share solo performances, DJ, sing, dance and generally keep in touch and have some fun.
Tinderbox Orchestra Online Experiments: The Orchestra have been continuing to gather every Sunday afternoon and experiment with how to play / make music in big groups online – we hope to have something to show you soon!
Tinderbox Lab – Virtual Studio Wednesdays: A group of artists involved in the Tinderbox Lab have been gathering for skills-sharing sessions and to keep each other motivated and making new work.
Tinderbox Saturday Music School: A brand new project! – we are running online music lessons in small groups for a range of instruments, singing and song-writing.
Sounds & Sights of Isolation: A callout for creative responses to the current situation – poems, music, artwork, songs and other ideas. We are gathering these from people as individual expressions, and hope to make some collaborative artworks out of them.
Tinderbox ‘Hangouts’ & Skills-sharing sessions – Online sessions led by and organised for young people in Tinderbox. They have involved open-mics, musical editing and arrangement sessions, drawing sessions and Quiznights!
Online Gigs: We are looking to put a gig on soon with some of our collaborators and young musicians – stay tuned!
Guides & Resources
We have also put together a couple of guides & resources for others in case they might be useful:
- Guide to Online Music & Youth Work using Zoom
- Links to Financial Resources for Freelancers, artists/musicians and people on low income or out of work.
If you are interested in getting involved in any of the above please email admin@tinderboxcollective.org.