Colin Brumby grew up in Victoria, attending the Melbourne Boys' High School and then taking a music degree from Melbourne University. He taught in Victoria for three years before coming to a junior lectureship at Kelvin Grove in 1960. In 1963 he went overseas to further his studies in music, returning to a lectureship at the University of Queensland in 1965. In 1971 he was awarded a Doctorate of Music by Melbourne University and from 1975to1980 was Head of the Department of Music at the Universitv of Queensland, where in 1990 he is Associate Professor of Music.
Apart from his academic career, Dr Brumby enjoys an increasingly distinguished career as a musician. Throughout the last thirty years he has been musical director of se\·eral well-known choirs, orchestras and opera companies, a member of the Board of Directors of the Arts Council of Australia (Queensland Division), Chairman of the Queensland Opera Companv, and on the boards of directors of the Queensland Ballet Company and the Queensland Theatre Company. His work as a composer is widely recognised and he regularly receives commissions from all over Australia. In 1990 he is the holder of the Don Banks Fellowship, which frees him of teaching duties for a whole year of composition.
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Colin: I came to Brisbane at the end of 1959 and I had half made up my rnind I was going to stay here. I came under the pretext of a holiday but with the intention of not going back
if
I could find work. I had been bonded to the Education Department in Victoria, had given them their three years, and didn't particularly like what I saw stretching out in front of me, so I thought I would try my luck up here. In those days you could try your luck, you know. I went into the Director of Education, Mr Murphy, and he asked me about my background. When he found out I had a BMus and a Dip Ed he askedif
I would like a position at the Teachers' College - and I said "Yes, thank you very rnuch".I had been trying for a similar position in Melbourne but they were usually positions given for long and faithful service down there. It was the pattern in a lot of places in those days. The Director said "Well, come back in a few days and I will have checked you out". He didn't put it like that but I knew that was what he was going to do. So I went back in a few days and he said
"Yes, it's all right - your Inspector's Report is not terribly marvellous". I told him that that was one of the reasons for my leaving Victoria - I did not see eye to eye with the music inspector who was a geography chap! So that is how I came to be on the staff at Kelvin Grove. It was pure pot luck, you know. I had no idea I was going to be appointed to the Teachers' College-I thought maybe a high school in the suburbs.
Interviewer: Did you see being at the Teachers' College as a plus?
Colin: Oh yes, definitely, because it left me with some time and energy for composing, which was my main thing. But one can't live by composing so one has to teach, and the classroom didn't leave me time for composing. One had to be there so early, there were all sorts of lunchtime activities - a choir or a recorder group or dance group. Then one had to stay back after school for more choir and orchestras and things like that. I used to come home and collapse - I had no energy left. It was all I could do to haul myself back the next day. But Kelvin Grove was good, as I hadn't a terribly onerous lecture load.
Interviewer: How many contact hours a week did you have?
Colin: I think we probably had something like six or seven lectures a day, on a heavy day, but each day one usually had one or two periods off,
if
one were lucky. I suppose I had five or six hours of lectures a day- each one hour, I think they were in those days. When I was appointed Charlie Hall was in charge of music, with Lex Morris and John Ashton, and Louise Grimes who was also the Cathedral organist. I think she was the only other music graduate on staff from memory.Interviewer: I ask whether you saw Kelvin Grove as a plus or not because one of the people I've interviewed recently was an art teacher who was sent to Kelvin Grove. He did not see it as a plus at all, because you worked longer hours, you had shorter holidays, but the same classroom salary.
Colin: Well, having come from the lower salary scale as a teacher in Victoria, I think I saw it as a step up. It was a tertiary institution and it looks better on a CV to have taught at that level. And indeed when I went to London afterwards there was no trouble getting a teaching position by virtue of having been on the staff of the College. That I was quite incompetent in the situation I found myself in in London is another matter, but it got me the job!
Interviewer: Well, I think most people would see it as a promotion. How did you find the philosophy of instruction to potential primary school teachers?
Colin: Well, the philosophy, such as it was, was in reality Charlie Hall's
"method". I think a lot of it was derived from personal experience of seeing and using methods that he found worked and probably methods that were current when he himself was out in the field.
I thought it was a bit of a dead end and after a couple of years wondered
if
I wanted to be doing this when I was sixty? Although it was for me a veryrich experience as far as the students were concerned - because I enjoyed working with them very much - but as a career- not really!
Interviewer: Can you describe Mr Hall's method?
Colin: Educationally I think it was quite a sound one.
Interviewer: One of his students described his system of separating the class into singers and non-singers and giving the non-singers a recorder.
Colin: Well, this was part of it. In a way it had a bit going for it because it is a fact that a lot of children can't coordinate voice and ear awfully well - often because they just haven't been encouraged to practise doing it enough.
The idea of them coupling the notation of music theory with an instrument, rather than painfully working on a voice that wouldn't respond, was a good one and basically sound. I think the way he did it could be a little insensitive at times. Those who were relegated to recorders tended to see themselves perhaps as less than satisfactory. On the other hand, the recorder groups often came on faster because they had a practical means of realising musical pitch.
Interviewer: And perhaps the feeling that they were slightly disadvantaged made them a bit more determined?
Colin: Could well have been.
Interviewer: My informant turned out to be quite competent on the recorder!
Colin: I am not surprised - there were some bobby dazzlers.
It depended very much how you handled them I think. I mean, they were young adults and you had to treat them as young adults. Often I think this may have been one of the problems in the Music Department - that of adjusting a background in primary music to dealing with young adults - I think quite often this did not help the cause of music in the College.
Interviewer: How did you find the administration of the College?
Colin: I had very little to do with it really. Jack Greenhalgh was the Principal, and was always approachable. But the school hierarchy pertained.
I think it was very formal.
Interviewer: White shirts and ties?
Colin: Very much. Although I think we wore the Queensland public service uniform of golf socks and shorts.
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Miracles of coordination, mid-sixties. Courtesy of the Education History Unit, Department of Education
Interviewer: Are there any students from that time who stand out in your mind?
Colin: Several, but one loses touch with all but a few of them. For example, in the late sixties I formed the Queensland Opera Company, as it was then, and the Company spent nine months of every year touring little operas for schools. When I visited them at Julia Creek or Longreaclz or somewhere equally remote, I was surprised at how many people would come up to me and say "You don't remember me, I suppose, but I was in one of your groups at Teachers' College". That was about the only contact I then had - going out into the field and meeting them. Similarly, I was commissioned to write a work for Sydney Hospital's 200th anniversary in 1988 which was performed in the Great Hall at Sydney University. Afterwards a young lady who I thought looked familiar came up and said, "You won't remember me, but I was one of your students at the Teachers' College at Kelvin Grove". I said "Good Heavens - Group G, wasn't it?" And she said, "Nearly-H".
Interviewer: Did you socialise much with either the students or the staff?
Colin: Well, the Music Department had its own little common room in a building apart from the main one, so we very rarely - although I think it was a pity - saw other staff members. Occasionally we would join them for
morning tea in the other staff room - perhaps once a year, or something like that. Apart from people who had an interest in music, like Don Munro, for example, you hardly got to see any of the others. The Phys Ed people were downstairs in our building, so we knew them slightly better. Drama people, like Molly Woodward, we would see about once a year in regard to the College concert.
The students seemed not in the least reluctant to chat, particularly
if
there was something they needed to talk about. One could be walking along the verandah and have a group of them say something to you and find oneself embraced in the group conversationally for as long as one cared to stay. It was a nice relationship.Interviewer: Did they call you Mr Brumby or Colin?
Colin: Mr Brumby I think. I called them by their first names because I was only a couple of years older. I know now at Uni I write my name up on the board and say I will answer to Doctor, Doctor Brumby or Colin, but nothing else. I can't really remember clearly what I used to do in those days.
Interviewer: I am trying to pinpoint the time at which people stopped calling students Mr and Miss.
Colin: I graduated when I was about twenty-one and then had three years teaching, so I was only about twenty-five. I can remember one group which had a few girls who knew how the world worked, and some of them called me Colin. I remember deciding I would ignore it, as I thought they were just trying to get a rise out of me and preferred not to give them the satisfaction.
They just kept calling me by my first name and it got left at that, but that was unusual. Certainly with most of my colleagues I remember being on a first name basis, although they were considerably older. I think the official
line was to address students formally, but I'm fairly sure I tended to use first names.
Interviewer: Do you recall the annual concerts - sometimes in the Rialto, sometimes at the City Hall? I have a graphic description from Molly Woodward of how nice it was for Mr Hall to be able to have his choir there because he could fill it, but then her three or four actors were expected to run between microphones to do a piece of Shakespeare.
Colin: Exactly, it was dreadful. My main objection was the choice of music that the poor students had to learn. But we had no say in this because the concert was Charlie Hall's pigeon. He chose items like the "Lost Chord" of Sullivan - all right as a Victorian ballad but it was not exactly calculated to endear itself to students of that age. And the rehearsals were purgatory
for all concerned, they really were. Charlie Hall would get on to some finicky little point that did not make a jot of difference and thrash it to death. The students would be bored to the back teeth.
If
you ran an enjoyable rehearsal, a good tight rehearsal, you would get a good response from them. I was lumbered with the male choir and some spirituals like "Joshua at the Battle of Jericho" and the like and, at the risk of saying what a great chap am I, they had a great time and sang with great gusto-a bit rough but it was not meant to be a polished performance. It was really to give them an experience of a school concert, although I think this tended to get lost to sight during the exercise! The concerts were, nevertheless, something of a highlight. Mostly College was just day-to-day teaching - but enjoyable work, very enjoyable indeed. It required little preparation, which endeared itself to me, as any preparation was of"Charlie's book", as it was called.
Interviewer: And not much marking either.
Colin: No, none at all, wonderful. So it left a fair bit of time for writing- I was rather grateful for that but, even so, lecturing primary music method was not something I thought I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life.
Interviewer: Did you ever communicate any of the discontent you were feeling with the way the College or the Music Department was being run?
Colin: I remember John Ashton and I at one stage recognised the need for selected material that teachers in the field could use for teaching purposes in connection with the existing syllabus. We went to a lot of trouble to compile such a book but the Education Department would not play ball - wouldn't even give us the roneo paper. They were clearly very negative towards the whole project. We then explored the possibility of including for transmission with it in the Teachers' Union Journal. It consisted of a graded selection of songs that could be taught in association with the existing syllabus, and which included the work required to be taught at each grade level. The idea was that it would provide the teacher with suitable songs for each grade. But because we couldn't get it circulated we both felt very frustrated and put off by the whole thing and thought, "Well if that's the
attitude, blow them. We've done what we can and now it's up to them".
We were really angling for music specialists in all primary schools, because we could see the potential of the course we were teaching and the difficulty our graduates were experiencing in getting on top of a subject like music in two years - and then going out and teaching it effectively. Of course, there was the cost factor, and they'd always ask about schools where there would not be enough work to keep a specialist teacher fully employed. Our answer
was that there are plenty of other schools nearby where such a teacher could spend a day usefully-but this was "not on"with the College administration and we couldn't take it over their heads to the Education Department. In those days one just did not bypass the Principal and was, therefore, very restricted - this was one of the reasons why, when I looked ahead I thought,
"I don't want to be doing this in twenty years time"!
Interviewer: Were you at all active in the Teachers' Union?
Colin: I was not the least interested in union matters in those days. I was compelled to be a member of the Union and I resented that compulsion, although I can see the argument in favour of compulsory unionism, too. But I was saving to go overseas, having decided I was not going to stay - so I was fairly ineffective as a unionist.
Interviewer: You've done a lot of teaching but do you consider yourself primarily a musician and secondarily a teacher?
Colin: Oh, I can't separate them really. I'm more or less an all-round musician, in the sense that I am, I suppose, as much a conductor or as much a singer, or as much a pianist or composer, as a teacher. The fact that I earn my living teaching means that that is my main activity. What musical career I have is based on my composition, but I don't and can't live by composition, which is fitted in around my teaching load. The obligation to my employer must come first- holidays, weekends, early mornings and late nights, that's when I do my writing. This year I have a Fellowship, which is very nice- I can sit home and do what I do best for one year of my life.
Interviewer: Musicians are even less well-endowed than writers, I should say, when it comes to grants.
Colin: Probably so. The idea is certainly not very prevalent in the musical community.
Interviewer: I notice a recent "think tank" came up with the idea that we should worship our creative people, rather than our sportsmen!
Colin: There's room, and a need, for both of us. What we all need is for it to be made possible to do what we all do best. This way we can all make our maximum contribution to society. At the same time we can each develop our potential to the full. Is there any other purpose in life?
If
we can do that we each justify our place on this earth - "no room for passengers" is, I guess, what I'm saying!This text is derived from an interview by Susan Pechey in 1990.