Fergal Scahill Releases ‘Fiddle Tune A Day’ Album for Pieta House

Fiddle-player's videos watched more than 5.5 million times in 2017.

On 1 January 2017, We Banjo 3 fiddle-player Fergal Scahill launched his ‘Fiddle Tune A Day’ project, in which he would post a video performing a tune every day for a year. The videos, posted on Facebook and YouTube, have been watched more than 5.5 million times in over 40 countries.

Now nearing the final day, Scahill has just released an album of music from the project, Fergal Scahill’s Tune A Day, a digital release with all proceeds going to the charity Pieta House. The album features Máirtín O’Connor, Sharon Shannon, Jimmy Higgins, Ruth Smith, Gerry O’Connor, Adrian Scahill and many more.

‘The Tune A Day project started out as a challenge that I set for myself to get the fiddle out every day and play’, Scahill told The Journal of Music. ‘I wasn’t trying to preach or teach, I just wanted to play tunes every day! … Every day I get numerous messages for tune requests, people thanking me for sharing the music and for encouraging young musicians to play or learn a new tune.’

Over the hundreds of videos released during the year, Scahill frequently collaborated with other musicians from his travels in Ireland and around the world, including Rhiannon Giddens, Liz Coleman, Dirk Powell, Áine McGeeney, Erik Rydvall, and a number of traditional music groups.

For me the most rewarding part was the collaboration with other musicians. I discovered this year that most people have at least one Irish (or Celtic-ish) tune in them, and they only needed to be asked!