Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre
The Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre provides music therapy for special needs children of school age and younger. It is New Zealand’s first music therapy centre. The idea grew from a Kiwi family’s experience of music therapy in the UK and, subsequently, the realisation there was a need to provide a similar service here.
Singer and songwriter Hinewehi Mohi, her husband George and daughter Hineraukatauri, who has severe cerebral palsy, spent time at the Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy Centre in London in 1999. It was soon evident that therapy through music struck a chord for Hineraukatauri. For the first time in her life, she had an opportunity to participate in and control an activity and to actually create something. Most important for Hineraukatauri, music became a means to communicate.
Upon their return to New Zealand, the family determined to establish a music therapy centre here. The dream was realised with the opening in early 2004 of the Raukatauri Music Therapy Centre (RMTC) in Auckland. The Centre moved to bigger premises in Eden Terrace in 2005 comprising of two music therapy rooms, an observation facility, an office and waiting room and associated facilities.
Currently there are three full time and one part time music therapist employed to provide music therapy both at the Centre and in Outreach programmes in the community. All music therapists are fully qualified and registered with the NZSMT.
They work with vocals and an assortment of musical instruments. These include pianos, guitars, many kinds of drums & cymbals, wind chimes, xylophones, tambourines, recorders and much more! The work at the Centre focuses primarily on children. However, the aim is to ultimately provide therapy for all age groups within the wider community.
Nordoff-Robbins
The main approach to music therapy at the Centre is based on the internationally renowned Nordoff-Robbins approach emphasising improvisation and other creative techniques. This approach to music therapy, developed from the pioneering work of Paul Nordoff and Clive Robbins in the 1960s and ’70s, is grounded in the belief that all people can respond to music – no matter what the circumstances.
Music is part of everyone’s life. It is something we can all share as well as respond to in a uniquely personal way. The ability to respond to sound and music is an inborn quality in all human beings. Pulse and rhythm are found in the heartbeat, in breathing and movement. Pitch and rhythm, give the voice expressive and communicative qualities.
The inborn responsiveness to music exists regardless of disability, injury, illness or circumstances and is not dependent on musical training or background. It is out of this innate responsiveness to music that music therapy arises.
Music therapy is about building bridges of communication through music, about actively engaging individuals in potential growth, development and change through the power of music. Music therapy can help develop new skills, which can be transferred to other aspects of life.
For many people, music helps reduce a sense of isolation and creates new possibilities for participation in the world and a more creative life. Music therapists work with individuals and groups seeking to discover how each person relates and responds to music through engaging them in a musical dialogue.
