Storyplay City Week 2 – Amy & Adie

Welcome to the Porridge & Play Online blog Storyplay City edition, where we share the stories of all the adventures
we’ve had during our virtual play sessions on Zoom! Get in touch to find out how to join.

Scots Song & Kpanlogo Rhythms!

What an exciting second week…Singing in Scots and Ga, making kitchen drum-kits and dancing!!

Burns Night celebrations are known all around the world and at Licketyspit we thought that we should celebrate it bringing together Scottish cultures old & new!

With support from BEMIS, we were very lucky to be joined by Amy Geddes and Adie Baako. They combined Scots song with Ghanaian Kpanlogo drumming and dancing for a session like no other. Our beats were so irresistible that even the littlest ones like Sam and Daniel and Fatima and Faith had to join in!

Read the blog below for a reminder of the song word, how to make a kitchen drumkit & more! 🎻

📦 At the start of the session, Amy showed us how to make kitchen drum-kits using cardboard boxes and some wooden spoons, and shakers by filling a jar half full with pasta or rice! It just shows, you can make a kitchen drum-kit out of almost anything!

🥁 Adie then taught us some Ghanaian Kpanlogo drum rhythms. A Kpanglogo is a big drum from Ghana.

🗣️ Amy told us that Scots is a very old language in Scotland, most famously known in the poems written by Robert Burns, our national poet. She taught us a Scots song called Macaphee which is written in the Scots language with some nonsense words!

Macaphee Song Words

to the tune of Mrs MacLeod of Raasay

Macaphee turn the cattle roon loch a forun.

Here and there and everywhere, the kye are in the corn!

Waiting at the shielin o Mhairi bhan mo chrì

Waiting at the shielin, oh far away to sea.

Hame will come the bonnie boats, Mhairi bhan mo chrì

Hame will come the bonny lads, hi ho and hee!

How to Make a Kitchen Drumkit

Here are the meanings of some of the words!

Macaphee – the Scottish surname MacPhee
roon – round
loch a forun – no one seems to know of a loch by this name! It is thought that this song is made up from a Gaelic version, so it is likely to be a corruption of a Gaelic language phrase.
kye – cattle or cows
shielin – a hut or a shelter on farmland
Mhairi bhan mo chrì – fair Mairi my love
hame – home
bonnie – pretty

1, 2, 3, 4…The Languages of Porridge & Play

We counted 1, 2, 3, 4 to keep ourselves in time – Amy counted in Scots andAdie counted in Ga. Then our play experts shared some of their languages. Felicia and Adeela showed us how to count in Joroba, a language of Nigeria, Erin in Shona, a language from Zimbabwe, Sara in Kurdish and Abdal showed us in Arabic!

So many languages! 🌍

Brilliant Dancing

🎶 We had to move our bodies next so we got up and danced with Adie! We picked the apples from the tree, said our prayers, rolled our arms and wiggled our hips! What brilliant dancers you all are!

Having Amy and Adie coming to teach us about playing rhythms and singing together made me think of how beautiful it is to have many languages and many cultures that like magic doors lead us into new music, stories, dances and games.

Let’s keep opening new doors to fantastic adventures to learn about ourselves, others and the big wide world!

Taz & Iona 🙂

About Amy & Adie

Amy Geddes is a Scottish Traditional Musician and expert music teacher. Find out more about here at www.amygeddes.co.uk. She is also a Licketyspit Associate Artist and is part of ABC Music – a really cool organisation called which has an app and lots of videos to help you play more music at home.

Adie Baako is a professional Dancer from Ghana. He dances to Kpanlogo rhythms and sometimes he drums them too! Find out more about his group Akrowa UK here. Adie first danced with us at Porridge & Play in 2020 – read the blog here.