Special Section: In Memory of Clive Robbins 1927-2011

Personal Memories of Clive Robbins and His Role in the Development of Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy in Australia

By Robin Howat

Clive was always there like an anchor for Nordoff-Robbins. As he was half of the original partnership with Paul, through Clive I felt connected to the inspiration of the work. He was the ultimate reference point for my questions, my need for clarification, or some point of history. After practising music therapy for over thirty years, it was good to be able to refer to a higher authority, someone who knew, because he was there where it all began!

I met Clive in 1977, when I was a student on the course at Goldie Leigh Hospital in London. Carol and he taught in two teaching blocks and they had a very strong impact on our student group. For me, my music therapy training was a total musical and psychological renewal. Yes, it was very challenging, but I loved that course. It seemed like everything I had been waiting for. Now I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life. Perhaps this was a similar awakening to Clive’s when he first met Paul at Sunfield in 1958 and life took a completely new direction.

But there were tensions during my course. These were early days after Paul’s death and some had doubts about Clive’s ability to carry on the leadership of Nordoff-Robbins, as unimaginable as that now seems. Despite the tensions, Clive and Carol were warm and generous in their teaching and we learnt much from them. They came to the London course every year and the tensions eased gradually but it took many years. I look back with such respect for their integrity as they never complained but were able to see past the personal difficulties to the bigger picture and the future of Nordoff-Robbins, to which they were so committed in their typically dignified but very determined way.

Paul and Clive came to Australia in 1974 and lectured in Sydney and Melbourne. Their presentations made a huge impact, especially on musicians and educators. Enid Rowe a pianist and music teacher based in New South Wales heard their case studies on tape and determined to train in London. She used to joke how instead of her daughter leaving home, she left home and headed for London. Enid and I were students together in 1977-78, and, through her, my family and I eventually came to Australia and settled here.

After graduating, Enid returned to Australia and, as the first qualified NR therapist in Australia, took up regular work at three Centres for Curative Education, keeping in close touch with Sybil Beresford-Peirse, Director of the London Centre and Professor Alfred Nieman, an influential teacher of improvisation in the London music therapy world.

It was at Enid’s initiative that Clive and Carol came to Australia for a month in 1981, resulting in a series of annual return visits of at least eight months each year. Because of the consistent year of musical experiences Enid’s clients enjoyed, Clive and Carol were able to introduce handbells to both Warrah and Inala Communities, a work which Enid continued and developed with great success.

In 1984, Clive and Carol formally moved to Australia and settled at Warrah. In response to requests from a parent of a disabled child—and with Enid’s close participation and the cooperation of Karl and Hannelor Karltenbach and Ray Seymour from Warrah—the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Centre in Australia was founded. Responding warmly to Enid’s initiative, her old friend Peter Sculthorpe became a figurehead, as did the composer Ross Edwards, another friend. Clive and Carol worked to promote music therapy, not just creative music therapy. They promoted the Australian Music Therapy Association as the professional body representing all music therapists. They were important mentors. Kirstin Robertson-Gillam who went on to lead the course at the University of Technology, Sydney worked closely with them.

Clive remembered these as happy days, sharing the music therapy responsibilities at Warrah and Inala with Enid. He remembered the special mood of the Christmas plays and the unforgettable visits to Enid’s lovely home in the Blue Mountains with her second husband, Len Leslie. Enid once wrote about the work:

This approach is an improvisational model where clinical goals are contained within musical goals. Personal freedom is realised through musical freedom. Self-confidence is realised through independent creativity in music. Music to me is the language by which I communicate: with myself, with others and with the spiritual world. I do not understand it. I feel it. Music-making is a blessing, a benediction and I thank all the people in my life who have influenced my musical direction.

Clive and Carol were both a big part of that musical influence and I believe Enid has captured something of Clive’s philosophy too.

Clive and Carol moved back to the USA in 1987. Based in New York they had the joy of helping establish the Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Foundation in 1988 that led to the founding of the Nordoff-Robbins Center for Music Therapy at New York University in 1990.

Carol passed away in 1996. Clive always continued a very close and warm association with Australia visiting Sydney in 1997 with Ken Aigen, and then the newly established Golden Stave Music Therapy Centre in 2002 and 2007. Clive loved coming to Australia and was absolutely delighted when the Golden Stave Music Therapy Centre opened in 2001. Just before this, the University of Western Sydney in collaboration with Nordoff-Robbins had begun delivering the Graduate Diploma in Creative Music Therapy that converted to the Master of Creative Music Therapy in 2004.

Although Clive’s visits were always much too brief, they had a great and lasting impact on the therapists, students, Board of Directors, fund raisers and a broad range of people whose lives were touched by his inspiration. Iani Sujono, now a senior music therapist and Operations manager for Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy Australia remembers:

I first met Clive in 2002 when he visited our Centre. I remember feeling excited but very nervous to meet the co-founder of Nordoff-Robbins! The man that I met was such a wonderful human being who had tremendous passion for music therapy and such enthusiasm in imparting his knowledge to us, the younger and budding music therapists. I particularly remember Clive demonstrating the Five Fingers song to us. He counted my five little fingers and in turn, I counted his. ‘Wow, I am counting Clive's fingers!’ I feel so honoured to have had the opportunity to learn from Clive and to have shared memorable musical experiences with him during his time with us. He was, and always will be, an inspiration to us all!

After his visit in 2007, Clive inspired Alan Lem, course advisor for the Master of Creative Music Therapy to write the following description:

For me, one of the most appealing aspects of the Nordoff-Robbins approach is its deeply spiritual (though never short of critical evaluation) focus on the human needs and their connection with music, which Nordoff and Robbins saw not only as a catalyst to single gains but as a potent, life-transforming force. Such an attitude can only develop with an in-depth understanding of human life and the scholarly investigation of music and its clinical possibilities.

Clive seemed neither possessive nor protective of his work. I value this more and more, appreciating his ability to inspire, to instruct without pushing a ‘party line’. Like the concept of the Music Child slowly transforming the Condition Child from within, Clive presented creative music therapy as an approach constantly growing and changing from within, re-energised by each therapists’ work, transforming and being transformed as each student began to realise his or her potential. Clive wanted each student to develop a sense of freedom and spontaneity so as to open the doorway to improvisation. He wanted to help unlock the student’s intuition as a way of building trust in the ability to improvise. Clive saw his destiny in music therapy, but he saw the destiny of each music therapist, of music therapy to bring joy and transformation in a troubled world. He knew the potential of music therapy and that it was bigger than just one approach or one person.

Clive had a deep desire to bring people together through music therapy. Communication was his passion. Paul had a genius for music as communication; Clive had a genius for portraying and communicating the work as a living reality through the written and spoken word. I treasure his powerpoints (especially “Living in the Creative Now”) and diagrams. I prize the studies and lectures we have on DVD as well.

Thinking about his gift for communication, in 2007 on his last visit to Sydney, Clive gave a lunchtime lecture for staff at the University of Western Sydney. His account of Barry, a relatively young man recovering from a serious stroke, and how music therapy helped him regain speech after a stroke, was profoundly moving yet made complete sense even for those with no musical knowledge. Seeing Ken Aigen and Alan Turry work with Barry brought many to tears. This is what Clive could do: he could explain complex processes and make them clear for people, so that they could understand music therapy, they could “get it.”

I believe one of Clive’s greatest gifts was the ability to convert his love for the clients and for music into an approach that was totally practical and down-to-earth. His intensely spiritual view of life was also intensely practical. This was true of his clinical work, his teaching and his supervision. He was a meticulous craftsman. When a student or therapist was lucky enough to present their work to him, Clive was a demanding listener and never let anything dubious go by without questioning you. He gave critical insights but never left you demoralised. He was unrelentingly practical. He had an eye for detail, noticing, for example, if the instruments were properly tuned, the sticks or beaters the correct size, or the room set up the best way. He often used to comment on drums that were too high for clients to beat with free arm movements. He hated clutter in workrooms and advised me to clear up quite a few times!

Matthew Breaden, a student when Clive came to Australia in 2002, remembers his visit:

For a music therapy student, still wet behind the ears, Clive’s visit provided a massive dose of empowerment. His presence radiated a great inner strength, and his words to us were so well chosen: ‘Music Therapy is like gardening’ is but an example... he clarified this by adding ‘to help something to grow, you have to nurture it!’
Clive’s sessions with the students taught us so much about how to help, how to take care of a situation musically. He encouraged us to see the potential in ourselves and in the clients, and the possibilities of the ‘here and now’ in our work. His holistic approach, seeing the person rather than the pathology, was inspiring. Most of all, I will remember his seemingly inexhaustible faith in people, and in music.

Before ending I would like to share a wonderful recollection from Alan Lem:

One night, I was driving Clive to Nick Hampton and Jean Panther’s house for dinner. During the trip, he listened intensely to the story of my life as a refugee, showing, quite naturally, a great deal of sympathy for the hardship I and my family had encountered under the communist regime in Poland. We then had a pleasant dinner during which, as I remember, we talked about the current state of the world. I was moved by the way Clive was sharing not only his deep interest in and knowledge of international affairs but above all, serious concerns for the state of humanity. After the dinner, Clive asked us if we wanted to view some case studies from NY, which of course we did. I will never forget the vibrant enthusiasm, like one you would expect from a young music therapy student, with which Clive was commenting the videos. He has obviously seen them so many times and yet, always looked at them with fresh eyes. This was a truly inspiring moment, perhaps because it was engendered by a truly inspired human being.

Clive has gone in physical form but, for those of us blessed by his teaching and mentorship, he remains a living presence.