The Nordoff Robbins learning experience
Training with us means joining the leaders in the field. We’ve been training music therapists since 1974. It’s a world of rapid change; our services, training and research departments are closely linked, so our programme contains the most up to date skills, training and thinking.
Music centred approach
We see music therapy as musical work. It requires a high level of musical skill and wide-ranging psychosocial understanding of how music and music-making impact on a person’s experience of health and wellbeing, individually and communally.
You will learn the best ways to engage people musically, whose life experience, illness or disability or social exclusion make it hard for them to participate in life. You will become skilled in using musical-personal skills to engage clients individually and in community contexts, opening up areas of self-experience and of interaction with others.
You will learn about psychology, musicology, sociology, culture and health studies as well as theoretical and research material from the music therapy field. This will help you meet wide-ranging needs and explain your work coherently to managers, employers and funders.
A flexible programme
Many of our students are active professional musicians and teachers with busy working schedules. Our flexible programme means you can continue to earn a living while you study:
- A choice of 2 central training locations; London and Manchester, with 12 places available at each
- Convenient placement locations: as the largest single employer of music therapists after the NHS, we have a huge network to tap into when organising placements
- Flexible study timetable: each week you spend two consecutive days at your teaching base, a day on placement and have a day for private study.
Preparation for the workplace
Training is about more than learning to use music to transform lives, it’s about equipping you for the workplace including:
- Knowing how to articulate the relationships between music, health and society
- Being familiar with key statutory policies in health, social care and education
- Gaining skills in presenting the work you do to a range of audiences
- Being able to link with other professionals whose work overlaps with yours
- The entrepreneurial skills necessary for setting up work
