CARE homes, hospices and community groups will be able to enjoy a ceilidh this Christmas thanks to an online group of traditional Scottish musicians.

A project by Tunes in the Hoose, set up to allow musicians to keep playing together during the pandemic, is rolling out a free virtual show to care services across the country. As well as traditional ceilidh tunes and bagpipes, the film features festive messages from well-known actors including Elaine C Smith, Greg Hemphill, Blythe Duff and Clare Grogan.

Tunes in the Hoose grew rapidly after being created as a way of bringing musicians together during lockdown, with around 870 people from across the world now involved.

Project co-founder Martin MacLeod, who edits the films, said it was inspired by family friend Peter Wood, who began recording songs on his accordion in his house in Shetland to raise the spirits of locals.

MacLeod’s father – also called Martin, who was a founding member of the folk band Capercaillie – then asked if he could make a film of them playing together.

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“It worked quite well, considering it was just home technology, no fancy mikes or equipment,” he said.

“So then we thought about creating a wee group on Facebook for other musicians to do that, as my dad is obviously friends with a lot of musicians.

“It grew and grew with more musicians coming in, so we now have a group of maybe 870 and a fan base of 11,000 people who tune in daily to all of the productions.

“We are now at over three million views in total and we have musicians from literally every country – we’ve had players in Japan, India, Spain, Italy, France, US obviously, Canada, Australia – which has been great.

“It has been a real eye-opener how many Scots are at home with an accordion waiting to play.”

MacLeod said the sessions had been a “great comfort” for many regular listeners who are older and live by themselves.

When his mum suggested a virtual ceilidh for a local care home, the group decided to do something more ambitious which could be extended to all care services across Scotland.

The result was the Ceilidh in the Care Home show, which has been launched in partnership with the Care Inspectorate, Scottish Care and charity Music in Hospital & Care to help spread the word.

Although many of the performances had previously been recorded, it took around two months to organise including tracking down special guests to get them to record and send in messages.

MacLeod said the reception had been very positive after it was live-streamed for the first time last week.

“A lot of people who were watching live on Facebook were those in sheltered housing and we had really lovely feedback,” he said.

“We also had some feedback from a care home in East Kilbride saying it went down really well with the residents.

“I have also had a few emails from teachers wondering if we could trim it down to a half an hour version that they could introduce to really young pupils who are getting to know rhythm.

“So we are hoping to facilitate that very soon and send that out to some schools as well.”

The show is available for anyone to watch from the website tunesinthehoose.com, as well as on Facebook and YouTube.

MacLeod added: “We have been very lucky to have something to do this year and it has been a great project.

“You can really see how people are reacting to it and it is all very positive. It has been a great thing to do throughout a tricky year and good fun.”