New Zealand and Music Therapy

A Synopsis of a New Scene

By Morva Croxson

As Australasian editor for this publication I hesitated at this stage to write on behalf of Australian colleagues, hence the focus on New Zealand and music therapy. Later, when informed links have been made, Australian colleagues have promised to share in this exciting new overview of what is happening in our Southern Hemisphere music therapy world.

Each country has indigenous people and became British colonies, each has strong links to Pacific Island peoples, and there is a close relationship between Australia and New Zealand in many economic, cultural and social milieus. Music therapy in Australia had earlier informal and formal beginnings than in New Zealand and this was of great benefit to the early pioneers of music therapy here. Observations of music therapy practice in Sydney with Ruth Bright and in Melbourne with Denise Erdonmez helped us get started and over the years the collegial support of the Australian Society for Music Therapy and its practitioners has been consistent and greatly valued.

There are two historical threads to the beginnings of music therapy recognition in New Zealand; one came from the initiatives of an audiologist in Auckland. The other grew out of the passion of an expatriate New Zealander who had been in Juliette Alvin's first group of music therapy students at the Guildhall in London.

Audiologist Bill Keith backed the Auckland Society for the Mentally Afflicted Child (the naming was changed a little later) in bringing Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins to New Zealand in 1974. They worked primarily with children who had hearing problems and with intellectually handicapped children, but their influence went wider than those client groups. Watching Paul the composer and Clive the ex-teacher finding "the music child" in each youngster was wonderful. One could sense the musical strength of these purposeful songs and mood-matching improvisations. Connections were made between the physical, mental and social human being in need and the melody, rhythm, texture, dynamics, harmony and form of the music that was created. Sounds came from silent children, distractibility turned to focus and attention, movements matched the pace of the music piece, and there was change. Several of us who watched these two gifted men work realised that it was possible to identify and understand the underlying effect that music had. The instinctive belief was given living evidence. Music was a powerful agent for physiological and psychological change. We were inspired to train as music therapists from what Nordoff and Robbins showed us.

Mary Lindgren produced the second thread that provided the beginnings of a New Zealand Society for Music Therapy. She was an aspiring concert pianist who travelled to London to study. Meeting Juliette Alvin changed her life and Mary became one of Juliette's band of pioneering students. This motivated her to return to this country, lobby her wide circle of influential friends in legal, educational and musical professions, and persuade them to set up a new approach to music, to provide a framework around which music therapy could flourish.

In 1975 therefore the national body was formed. Alongside this development came another important catalyst for growth. Roy McKenzie, later Sir Roy, was a remarkable philanthropist who searched out areas where seeding finance could effect improvement in people's lives. He became very interested in music therapy, funded early ventures, and later gave scholarships so that individuals could train overseas; he funded hospice work and financed and encouraged the long, slow pathway towards establishment of a tertiary course in music therapy training. Sir Roy has been the Sir Galahad of music therapy in New Zealand, influencing other people and state agencies to take this new music discipline seriously.

Eighteen years of music therapy activity preceded the year 2000 establishment of a music therapy masterate course at Wellington Conservatorium, Massey University Wellington. The national executive of the New Zealand Society of Music Therapy organized conferences and courses, and invited overseas and New Zealand tutors to provide the learning leadership. They produced newsletters and an annual journal, visited and lobbied politicians and policy makers in the fields of education health, justice, welfare and community and kept the public profile of music therapy at a high level. An enormous amount of volunteer effort and public goodwill has been shown to music therapy, but there is still a lot to be done to establish a fully developed and accepted profession and career structure for qualified people.

That is the formal background to music therapy development in New Zealand. A young profession in a young country can still have a particular flavour however, and New Zealand has worked consciously to nurture a music therapy environment in practice and training that is appropriate to this place. The Maori people are the tangatawhenua, the first people, of New Zealand. European explorers, then whalers, sealers and traders came here from the late 18th century, British colonists arrived in the early 19th century. Maori spiritualism involved many gods, centred on the land, and, as did everyday life-processes, used music with terrestrial and extra-terrestrial focus. The waiata (song) and haka (strong dance) are taonga (treasures) and central to tribal life. European missionaries disturbed this belief system and musical tradition with Victorian music and values as part of their Christian advocacy. Then the land-hungry settlers disturbed the patterns of tribal ownership and language autonomy. Land wars make for cultural rift. From the settlers' viewpoint, young energetic Scottish men and women came from land displacement in their own country. British settlers arrived under the banner of church settlement. Often a sense of adventure or a feeling of displacement drove people to the other side of the world.

This potted history is not unique in its mix of positive and negative influence preceding the general set of advantage and disadvantage in the present day. It is centrally important however for each country to acknowledge the whole of its history. Therapists in all disciplines know this, and music therapists have their particular responsibility to make that heritage part of their coinage of repertoire, process, communication, transaction - whatever you want to call the music exchange that is the heart of music therapy responsibility.

New Zealand music therapy therefore has had a conscious desire to be eclectic. There has not been a favoured school of thought, but rather a wish to use what is best for the situation that is presented. Behaviourism sits alongside humanistic practice. Use of instruments and repertoire is inclusive of all backgrounds, and we have a growing Maori and Polynesian population together with a wide range of Asian peoples joining the European settler base.

This mix of cultures in New Zealand is modest compared with the range of peoples who form the population of Australia. The Aboriginal people have a much older indigenous history, also tribal, also deeply spiritual. Many more European peoples were encouraged to immigrate to Australia following World War Two, with Italian migrant workers in Queensland, Greek families seeming to congregate in Melbourne, and many other nationalities came to other states and cities. Each brought their special traditions and musics.

Then too the Pacific Island and Oceania peoples have their own way of including music in their everyday lives. There is a fervent Christian tradition in several of the islands. Research scholars have observed that music accompanies traditional rites and festivals. In order to keep vibrant traditional arts activities alive there are major festivals in this part of the world. Hopefully some of these particular emphases can be investigated in later editions of this new journal, so that proper insight into "the celebration of difference" through music therapy can sit alongside the growing interest in research and wider scholarship to support music therapy practice.

It would be wonderful if musicians and musical observers could help bring knowledge and understanding of the musics of Australia, New Zealand, of the whole Oceania area, to this journal. If a channel for this is needed, I am that channel, so do get in touch.