Scottish Youth Music Exchange

About:

We have been working to kickstart a new network of out-of-school, youth music groups across Scotland, and would love to hear from you if you might like to get involved. We will be meeting online and organising visits between different projects, and generally want to create more opportunities for people working in this field to get to know each other, share practice, and develop new projects and collaborations together.

We’re keen to involve of all sorts of youth music projects – people working in different kinds of community settings, across different genres of music, and with people of different ages and abilities. Your group could have just started up, or it could have been going for years; you could be one person doing everything or part of a larger group or organisation. If you would like to be involved, or are interested in finding out more, we’d love to hear from you.

Travel Bursaries

As part of this group, the Youth Music Initiative have funded a number of bursaries for people to visit other projects around the country.

The bursaries cover travel costs for someone in your youth music group to visit another project or organisation, plus a £75 contribution towards the youth music groups involved – both for the group that is visiting and the group that is hosting. (Note: If you are travelling to or from any of the islands, or places which have additional travel considerations and costs, we will try to find a way to support this.)

Click here to see some of the music groups and organisations involved so far.

It is free to join the network and apply for a bursary to visit another project or organisation – see below for eligibility and more information.

Eligibility:

The network & bursaries are open to youth music groups and organisations working in ‘out-of-school’ youth music projects in a variety of settings, from a wide mix of genres and creative approaches, and with a focus on supporting smaller organisations and local community groups working in this area.
They are not eligible to organisations whose work comprises solely of 1-to-1 private tuition.
If you are a freelance practitioner, you would have to apply through an existing youth music group or organisation.
Depending on the number of groups that get involved, and the number of bursaries available, youth music groups & organisations may be able to open up the opportunity to other freelancers or practitioners who you work with. We are starting off by offering 1 bursary to each group, and depending how many people get involved we might be able to offer more.
The bursaries have a focus on supporting local groups and smaller organisations, and if you are travelling to or from any of the islands, or places which have additional travel considerations and costs, we will try to find a way to support this. We hope that funded organisations who are keen to develop these exchanges will be able to cover some of these costs themselves.
We are keen to encourage all sorts of youth music groups from different genres, with different creative approaches and from all around Scotland. Some examples could include youth rock bands, jazz bands, songwriting, rap, music production, street bands, brass bands, choirs, traditional music groups, DJ-ing and more. You could be offering music to young people in local youth clubs, community centres, music venues, social care settings, hospitals or other community-based settings.

Process for managing the bursaries and visits

If you apply for a bursary and are eligible, we will contact the groups that you would like to visit, and put you in touch with your ‘host’ organisation or music group.
The next step will be to meet with them online, so you can find out more about each other’s work, and find the best project and time for an in-person visit.
Once you have finished the visit or exchange, you should organise another online meeting with your host to check in with them and share any thoughts, learning or general reflections about the exchange. We ask that you summarise some of this feedback in either a short feedback form or video. We’ll try to collate some of the learning and feedback from everyone to share with others, and guide what the network does going forward.
Lastly, we ask that you attend at least one of the online sessions/group meetings, so you can meet others who are taking part in the programme with you.

Notes

If you would like to visit other groups voluntarily without a bursary, or use your own funds to support more people within your group or organisation to visit other groups in the network, that would be great too and we can help put you in touch.

How to Apply:

To Apply to join the network and/or for a bursary to visit another project, please fill out this short application form.

Contact

Please contact us at info@tinderboxcollective.org if you have any questions.