Quality of the singing bowl or any musical instrument

Identifying the quality of the Singing Bowl or any musical instrument is both an art and a science.  The scientific aspects must look for the elements of the sounds (in technical terms, parametric evaluations).  One such approach is to identify the frequencies present if the instrument generates multiple notes or note present if the instrument generates one note. For the singing bowl, my write-up on understanding the frequencies of the singing bowl provides a perspective. There are many additional ways the instrument can be evaluated based on the audio parameters.

Once the mind has done the job (aka parametric evaluation or technical evaluation), the heart must also come into play.  Thus, whatever is the technical evaluation, there needs to be a “positive vibe or feel” about the sound we hear.  This is where the art or experience in listening to or tuning the instrument comes in.  As we discuss in the Naad Yoga workshop, just a guitar tuner is NOT the only way to check especially when the sound contains so many frequencies (e.g. in a singing bowl).  This is where the “feel” of the sound also gets the additional weightage.

From my little experience in learning music, I felt that both the mind and the heart must be involved in selecting the instrument. The intent of this short write-up is aptly captured by the Chinese characthe importance of heart and mind in singing bowl selectionter (or Kanji) describing the word “listen” !  As the visual depicts, the word listen must involve the ear (of course !) but there is more to listening than just the use of “ears”. We need to see and integrate what we see with what we hear and finally, there is a role of the heart and the mind, both! Needless to add, this means, we need the undivided attention of ALL the senses to the object and this is where the art and science get together!  We cover the selection of the singing bowls in our workshops, however, I felt that it is important to highlight this for everyone who is keen to learn more about the therapeutic use of sound (or sound healing).

I have attempted to make a video using another instrument that I love – to articulate the above in a short clip below:

The following links provide more information about the work we do:

  1. Naad Yoga (Sound healing) workshops
  2. Understanding the frequencies of the singing bowl
  3. One bowl for each chakra – a real need or a myth?
  4. Our research with singing bowls, meditation and more – click here
  5. What is Society for Energy & Emotions – that certifies our workshop contents?

Please contact me if you have any feedback on these ideas.

Gunjan Y Trivedi

If you liked the links above, and want to know more about Tabla, please watch a short video (below) !

Naad Yoga (Sound Healing) Certification