Special Section: In Memory of Clive Robbins 1927-2011

A Man Full of Spirit, Love and Music: Remembering Clive Robbins

By Kana Okazaki-Sakaue

 

Above is the message which I had sent from Japan to NY for his funeral which took place on December 11th after his passing on December 7th.

I still cannot believe that he is gone, as I was not able to attend his farewell viewing to witness this reality. I only spoke to Clive on the phone two weeks prior to his death, so that his voice still remains so vividly in my ears.

He has been my teacher, supervisor, and a mentor since 1988 when I was a trainee at the Nordoff-Robbins Centre in London. He also recommended that I study at the NYU NR Center after he had moved to New York from Australia. During his worldwide teaching trips he toured around Japan very often, so I also took the role of his translator.

When I was hired as a full-time associate professor at the Music Therapy Program of the Senzoku College of Music, we were able to welcome Clive as a Guest Professor and also an Honorary Director of the Music Therapy Institute. Our students were so lucky to have Clive’s “live” lectures and workshops. He usually stayed three full weeks in a small house provided by our university and he taught students and supervised students as well as staff, rested and was writing books (at that time, he was writing his chapters of A Journey into Creative Music Therapy). He often asked me for comments on what he had written. I felt very honoured to be asked and it was such a joy to be by his side in the process of his writing. We have spent so much time in London, New York and in Japan.

In this article, I would like to share with you about how much Clive has contributed to the development of Japanese music therapy scene, as well as how inspiring and nurturing he has been in my professional and personal life.

Clive’s first visit to Japan took place in 1984. Carol Robbins and he were invited by the Japanese Anthroposophy Association and the Yasuda Insurance Company, both of which were interested in the power of music in mental health. On their first visit, Clive and Carol had travelled from Tokyo to Hiroshima (Professor Yu Wakao), Kofu (Dr. Toshikazu Matsui), Osaka (Professor Tadafumi Yamamatsu) and then back to some universities in Tokyo (with Dr. Yasuji Murai and Professor Hitoshi Sakurabayashi). Their visit made a great impact on the Japanese music therapy scene as the professional history of this field in Japan had only started in the late 1960s. With the help of two great translators—the first Nordoff-Robbins graduate from London, Harumi Suzuki (nee Koyama), and the great Shakuhachi master, Christopher Blasdel—Clive’s and Carol’s lectures and workshops were very successful and inspiring, and provided (and still provide) a great nourishment for the Japanese music therapy field.

After this first visit, Clive and Carol continued to teach in Japan for many years. Regular seminars and workshops were hosted by the OSNRMT (Organisation for Studying Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy, established in 1993) with the shared endeavours of Professor Noriko Hamatani, Professor Yohji Hayashi and Professor Hiroko Fujimoto. After Carol’s death, Alan Turry, Ken Aigen and Kaoru Robbins also joined Clive’s visits to Japan.

In 2007, a group of Japanese music therapists who hold Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapist Certification had formed the Japanese Federation of NRMT (JFNRMT). There are nearly 30 members in this Federation, some of whom reside abroad such as in the US, Germany and Australia. However, the need to develop clinical improvisation amongst general music therapists in Japan is increasing more and more, so that I hope in the near future that there will be an NR training program established in Japan.

When he gave lectures and workshops in Japan, I took a role as one of his translators. The hardest part of this work was that he had never written texts to read; he would always improvise his speech according to the audience responses. It was my challenge to translate his philosophical world, and very often he got carried away with his passion and never made a pause for the translator! It was a challenging work at times, however, the more I translated for him, the more I felt that I was making music with his speech. The way he talked and moved, his voice, words, nuances and inflexions had many musical qualities, rhythms and phrases. I could sense his musicality in his speech and once I got into the "groove" with his musical speech, it was possible to convert his messages into our language.

I was very impressed with a comment one of my students made about Clive. She said “I understand what Prof Clive is trying to tell us. I do not understand English, but I do get the core of his work. I can HEAR it through his voice!”

I was also inspired by the way he listened to the students and his supervisees, especially when they had questions. Even though they are speaking a language which needs to be translated, Clive always listened so carefully to how they speak in their own language and he was nodding to their comments. It looks like he was listening intently to their mind, no matter what the language was.

There are so many graduates who are now out in the field working with clients, applying the Nordoff-Robbins approach. They know that it works and they are so confident in themselves when they use their improvisational music, especially in the unknown clinical situation. Clive had nurtured our musical beings and I was privileged to take part in his teaching. Not only as a mentor for my professional development as a therapist, he also inspired me and brought me up to become more accomplished and advanced teacher. I thank him so much for what he has taught me.

Personally, I also had a great time and good laugh with Clive. As I was brought up within a British educational and cultural context, we very often shared our British jokes. We also discussed at length about cultural issues and differences in music therapy education in Asian countries.

There are so many fun and good memories with Clive, especially when I was in New York from 1993 to 1995 for Level II training, and again from 1998 to 2001 for my Level III Nordoff-Robbins training and my doctoral studies.

At a Thanksgiving weekend in 1993, Clive and Carol invited three of us—me, Mie Yaeda, and Mary Rykov—who were all away from home. It was my first Thanksgiving in the United States and being foreign to this culture, I was feeling very lonely at a dormitory, where all the friends go home for the holiday. They cooked turkey dishes for us and treated us as their extended family. It was such fun that they were making up a song, something like “let’s get the turkey out of the oven ♪“,”Yes, yes, yes ♪”. It was as if they were playing in a musical theatre. I also remember their homemade Pecan pie, which was so delicious!

During my second stay in New York, I was living in the same apartment building for a year, three floors above Clive and Kaoru. Kaoru, being a Japanese woman with whom I feel a special bond, invited some of her colleagues and we all played Scrabble, a board game involving making words from letter tiles. Clive wanted to participate with Japanese words and he had this huge, thick English-Japanese dictionary beside him, and he actually won and beat us, who were all Japanese! When he was participating in the game, he was just like a little, mischievous boy, who never liked to lose the game. His natural and pleasant demeanour was so enlightening to me, despite all the achievements and reputation, he taught me how to be “myself.”

Clive was always full of spirit, love and music. He was humble, accepting, and very energetic. He was curious, creative and was a man who had worked so hard all through his life.

When he made his visit to Japan in March, 2010, he whispered and said to me, “Kana, this is the last time I come to Japan, but do not tell anyone, otherwise I will not be able to come back”. The year 2010 was incidentally the year of the 50th anniversary of Paul and Clive’s teamwork. Clive emphasized that he would speak about Paul in the lecture, and he actually played and introduced Paul’s song compositions of e.e. Cummings’s poems, such as “tumbling Hair” and “Sam”. The way he gave his speech was gentle but very firm. I felt like he was piercing something into our heart.

Many publications by Nordoff and Robbins have been translated into Japanese. A few of them include Music Therapy in Special Education was translated by Professor Yohji Hayashi, Kaoru Robbins (nee Mochizuki) and myself; Healing Heritage by Professor Yu Wakao, and Kazue Shinji; and, A Journey into Creative Music Therapy by Rika Ikuno. Some of the Children’s Play Songs were also translated and were compiled into one book. Also, I would like to emphasise that we are working on the second edition of Creative Music Therapy which will be published very soon.

Also, we are holding his memorial at the end of July, 2012 at the Senzoku College of Music to celebrate his life and contribution. And many of our colleagues, students, graduates will be gathering together to share what Clive has left in us.

I am sure that the seeds that Clive planted in Japan are now growing, blossoming and bearing fruits of authentic quality. I thank Clive for all he has given us and also for what he was, his genuineness and love.

References

Nordoff, P. & Robbins, C. (1983). Music therapy in special education (2nd Edition). Gilsum, NH: Barcelona (translated by Yohji Hayashi, Kaoru Mochizuki and Kana Okazaki, Ningen to Rekishi Publishers, Tokyo, 1998).

Robbins, C. & Robbins, C.M. (Ed.) (1998). Healing heritage: Paul Nordoff exploring the tonal language of music. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona (translated by Yu Wakao and Kazue Shinji, Ongaku-no-tomosha Publishers, 2003).

Robbins, C. (2005). A journey into creative music therapy. Gilsum, NH: Barcelona (translated by Rika Ikuno, Shunju-sha Publishers, 2007).

Nordoff, P. & Robbins, C. (2007). Creative music therapy: A guide to fostering clinical musicianship (2nd edition: revised and expanded). Gilsum, NH: Barcelona (translation and publication in progress).