Practicing “Gentle Empiricism” — The Nordoff Robbins Research Heritage

There is a gentle empiricism that makes itself in the most intimate way identical with its objects and thereby becomes actual theory.GoetheOne must not make theories; they must turn up like an unexpected guest in the house, whilst one is busy enquiring into details.FreudContemporary pressures on music therapists to provide evidence for the benefits and effects of their work by using tried and tested research paradigms and methodologies risk negating fundamental music therapy practices. This paper interrogates and, by implication, critiques contemporary research methodology and practice in music therapy by tracing the origins of the specific research ethos present in Nordoff Robbins. Drawing on the work of Goethe and Steiner, Nordoff and Robbins developed a clinical practice based around a distinct qualitative approach. This involved focusing on a phenomenological understanding of their clients' needs and evolving a creative and flexible practice to meet those needs. As a research principle in itself, this type of knowledgebuilding presents a particularly strong challenge to the contemporary ever-increasing simplification and politicization of what counts as appropriate evidence of music therapy's value and the consequent distortion of the phenomenon of "music's help" for people and places.Part 1 of this exploration begins with the roots of the Nordoff Robbins research tradition, which can be traced to the intellectual milieu in which their early work developed. Steiner's anthroposophical tradition, which was in turn based on Goethe's scientific approach has been characterized as a qualitative science proceeding from a "gentle empiricism". This stressed that research should always strive to "save the phenomenon," - meaning that a phenomenon should not be reduced or replaced with an explanation that omits human experience and its involvement in any understanding. This research attitude is well demonstrated both with Nordoff and Robbins' early empirical explorations in music therapy, and, thereafter, in a tradition of Nordoff Robbins researchers during the last 20 years in a variety of clinical areas.In Part 2, a series of project examples shows the character of this research principle in action. In particular the examples illustrate the pursuit of a particular way of coming to know phenomena (epistemology) and a way of investigating them (methodology). We hope to show how the Nordoff Robbins approach recognises that the development of practice, theory, and research is a necessarily concurrent and reciprocally creative project of "gentle empiricism."Part 1 : Goethe, Steiner, Nordoff and RobbinsGoethe's GoldfishJohann Wolfgang von Goethe finds himself in the mid-1 790s working for the Duke of Weimar and (reluctantly) part of a military expedition. He meets an old friend, Prince Reuss, an Austrian diplomat, who asks Goethe what he's working on at the moment, expecting him to outline a new novel or play. Armstrong (2006), a recent biographer, takes up the story:[Reuss] was very much surprised when Goethe broke into an impassioned lecture on colour. In a state of high excitement, Goethe told Reuss all about an observation he'd made the previous day at a neighbouring village. He'd noticed a group of soldiers sitting around a little pond, fishing in the exceptionally clear water. Goethe amused himself by watching the fish, noticing that their colours appeared to change as they swam about. Why did this occur? Was it that the colour of the skin was itself affected by the movement? Then Goethe noticed something else. A piece of pottery had fallen into the pool; it appeared to be red on the nearside and blue on the side further from him. As Goethe walked around the pool he saw that the colours from this bit of pottery didn't change position. The blue still seemed to be on the far side. So the colour effect couldn't be due to the colour of the pottery itself but must be brought about by the water acting as a kind of huge prism. …