Not all singing bowls are the same. The singing bowls in The Singing Bowl Museum collection are better than 99% of all singing bowls, literally. Most singing bowls are new, having been produced in the last twenty years. The fine antiques in this collection are much better than any new singing bowl. New bowls are nothing like the fine antiques, as I explain below. Even if only considering antiques, the bowls in The Singing Bowl Museum collection are better than 99% of all antique singing bowls.
What makes these singing bowls so much better? It comes down to the tone, the vibration, the age and the form:
1. The Tone: Antique singing bowls produce a special tone that is instantly relaxing. No other instrument has such a mellow, warm and soothing tone. They are perhaps the most beautiful sounding objects ever made.
The tone is actually made of multiple tones that ring all at once. The tone I measure for the website is the lowest tone, known as the fundamental or first harmonic. At the same time, the bowl produces a series of harmonic overtones. You can usually hear three notes all ringing together, going progressively higher in pitch.
This chord of three or four notes is the unique and beautiful voice of a real singing bowl. One of the unique qualities is that you can easily pick out each of the three notes, or listen to them blended together as a chord. Bronze bowls and crystal bowls do not produce such a distinct harmonic series.
The second harmonic in an antique singing bowl should be a perfect fifth above the fundamental, or five notes of the scale. The third harmonic is an octave higher than the fundamental.
For example, if a singing bowl has a low tone of C, the second harmonic should be G and the third harmonic a higher C. However, the vast majority of singing bowls are not so ideally tuned. One of more of the harmonics may be out of tune with the others, producing a dissonant effect. If you listen to many singing bowl recordings online, you will hear many bowls that sound out of tune. This is due to imperfect harmonic relationships. Many bowls sound harsh due to poor tuning.
One of my main tasks when selecting each antique singing bowl in Nepal was to listen to the harmonics. I only selected bowls that were very in tune. Most of the bowls in The Singing Bowl Museum are perfectly tuned which is highly unusual. No other collection has so many perfect sounding bowls.
This is due to my careful screening process and the fact that these are the last and best of my many years of collecting. In my twenty years running Himalayan Bowls, I hand selected every singing bowl. I only selected the most harmonious sounding, perfectly in tune bowls. I sold most of them, putting the best aside for The Singing Bowl Museum. The bowls in this final collection are the best of the best. They are all beautiful sounding.
2. The Vibration: The tone is part of the physical vibration. Perhaps the most special thing about antique singing bowls is how you feel them. This is not the case with brass singing bowls nor crystal bowls. Antique singing bowls have a much stronger physical feeling.
This is why people say the bowls are healing. The physical vibration feels wonderful and promotes a special kind of self awareness. The gentle, soothing vibration is immediately adopted by your feeling self, producing a powerful soothing effect. It is so beneficial, many doctors use singing bowls as part of recovery process.
They are used for cancer patients in recovery, for post operative heart patients, stroke victims, in mental health and trauma centers and more. The reason they are beneficial is the soothing effect of the physical vibration combined with the as yet unknown benefits of the sound itself. In both areas, the best antiques do the best job.
Antique singing bowls have a much more smooth vibration and an unidentifiable "antique mojo." It is as if they have a spiritual, healing power that new instruments simply do not have. Nothing else is as soothing, magically healing and awakening than a real antique singing bowl.
They are not only amazing for how they make you feel, they also transform the feeling of any environment. Antique singing bowls have a very powerful positive effect on people and places. I believe it is because of the physical vibration.
3. The Age: That mojo may be due to molecular changes happening to the metal. In my book, The Singing Bowl Book, I discuss the work I did with the Archaeological Metallurgists at Oxford's School of Materials. One of the scientists there explained to me what happens as the metal ages. The heating and hammering process, he explained, causes the molecules in the metal to be agitated.
As the metal ages, this molecular movement slows. The metal approaches a stable state, where it becomes more brittle. This can actually be felt in the oldest bowls. The texture of the metal feels different in a subtle way. It can definitely be heard. As the metal changes, the tone becomes more and more mellow.
The oldest bowls no longer sound metallic. They have a more hollow, soft quality that is incredibly beautiful. The older a bowl gets, the more mellow the tone becomes. Bowls from the 17th century and earlier have the most special quality.
Other changes happen as the bowls age, particularly smoothing of the metal. Through hundreds of years of handling, the hammer marks are worn down until the surface of the bowls are perfectly smooth. The smoother surface seems to produce a smoother tone. This may be an important part to the special sound of antiques. In fact, we incorporated smoothing into the manufacturing process for new hand hammered bowls and it resulted in the best sounding new bowls ever produced. They are still available at my former company Himalayan Bowls.
Furthermore, being picked up and put down or slid across a surface caused the bottom of antiques to wear. The bottom of an antique singing bowl can be paper thin. This bottom thinning creates a different profile. If you can imagine the bowl flattened, the middle of the flattened bowl would be much thinner than the edges. This will undoubtedly change the tone.
4. The Form: In my 25 years collecting singing bowls, I have learned that the tone is dictated by the form. The shape and thickness, plus variations in the shape and thickness combine to cause the sound.
The metal in all antique singing bowls is the same. I tested hundreds of singing bowls and found remarkable consistency in the alloy in every type of bowl. Antiques and new hand hammered singing bowls are made from high tin bronze, an alloy of 77-78% copper and 22-23% tin. Only the high tin bronze of the antiques produces the special sound of a real singing bowl. Most new singing bowls are brass. They do not produce the same special sound and healing vibration of the real bronze singing bowls.
Since they are made with the same metal, antique singing bowls generally have a similar sound. Different shapes sound slightly different but similar enough to recognize them as the same instrument. So, a low sided manipuri bowl and a high sided thado bati may look quite different but share the same basic sonic properties.
They all have a low tone, or fundamental, which is the lowest note you can hear. At the same time, they produce two or three audible harmonic overtones, each half an octave higher than the fundamental tone. One or more of the tones will tend to produce a warble, or wah wah sound as the metal vibrates back and forth.
This natural oscillation of the sound is always present but can be changed by how you play it. Hit the bowl in one place, you will hear the low tone warble. Turn the bowl and hit it in another place, you may hear one of the harmonics warble. Some bowls you can hear all the tones warbling at once. Most bowls have a "sweet spot," where you can hear all the tones playing steady with little or no warble. In my recordings for the website, I try to find the sweet spot. Otherwise, I play the bowl in the way it plays most frequently. Some bowls have more warble than others, which is apparent in the recordings.
While the basic sonic properties are the same in different shapes, there are subtle differences that you can hear. Low sided bowls sound more clear and direct. High sided bowls have more internal echo, producing a more watery sound. Thicker bowls are higher pitched and tend to ring longer. Thinner bowls are lower pitched and tend to sound more warbly.
There is an ideal medium thickness when achieved produces the very best sound. An ideally shaped bowl can ring much longer. Combined with a symmetrical shape, it will also ring more steady. The shape and thickness combined determine the pitch. Variations in the thickness determine the harmonic relationships. Even the lines engraved in the bowl may alter the harmonic relationships. I speculated many years ago that the lines engraved in singing bowls may have been a way to tune the harmonic overtones, similar to how church bells are tuned.
All of these factors go into making a great singing bowl. These are the factors I considered when selecting each one for this collection. The fact is that only antique singing bowls produce this special sound. The sound is not reproduced in new bowls because they do not make the form as well as the antiques. Plus they do not have the huge benefits that come with real age.
Only the best antiques were made with such amazing craftsmanship, so they sounded better to begin with. Then the beneficial changes that came with centuries of age turned them into real treasures. This is why the bowls here at The Singing Bowl Museum are so special.
This combination of factors mean these the very best singing bowls in the world:
1. The sound of the tone and its internal harmony: how well the bowl is tuned.
2. The quality of the vibration and how nice the bowl feels.
3. The age of the bowl and the great mojo that develops over time.
4. The form of the bowl and the fact that antiques were made better, so they sound better.
Listen for yourself and hear the difference! Please comment and let me know what you think.
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