What are the best singing bowls ever made?

What are the best singing bowls ever made? I have played every type of singing bowl extensively and have worked with them for over 25 years. For many of those years, I have considered which are the best.

While there are standout individual bowls of many types, the type of singing bowl that is consistently better than all the others are the Special Engraved Singing Bowls.

These early singing bowls were masterfully made and beautifully finished with geometric designs which have become iconic in the singing bowl world. Made by master makers, they are some of the most refined shapes and durable construction of any singing bowl ever made. They achieved an excellent symmetry and ideal thickness so the bowls sound nearly perfect.

Not only are some individual bowls among the best sounding ever made, they are also great as a group. Over a large number of bowls, more of the Special Engraved bowls sound great compared to any other type.

The engravings found on these early singing bowls have endured through the ages. While lathed rings may be obvious to any maker, the geometric shapes used around the rim of the Special Engraved bowls made them truly unique. The makers used a number of different punches to create the unique geometric patterns around the bowls, some using more than one punch design to create a more complex pattern. The individual descriptions of the bowls on the website talk about the various designs found on the bowls.

What makes them better? The sound of a singing bowl is a combination of tones; a low tone, mid harmonic and high harmonic. These are the tones we can hear, each bowl playing three distinct tones on three octaves. We can sometimes hear a fourth harmonic but most commonly we can pick out three tones, all ringing simultaneously. My expertise is in choosing bowls which sound with great internal harmony, meaning that the three tones all ring nicely together; they sound in tune with one another. The more in-tune the three tones sound, the better the overall sound.

The Special Engraved bowls have the best internal harmony. They ring very true, with a strong and steady fundamental tone and steady, strong harmonics. The tones are very long lasting, more steady than others and better tuned than any other type of bowl, in any size. I have found Special Engraved bowls in small and medium sizes. They sound exceptional.

The other special quality about antique singing bowls is their physical vibration. The older bowls have a special antique mojo as well. The vibration and the mojo affect how you feel and how the environment feels. While there are exceptional Circle & Dot bowls and other types of bowls that feel amazing, the Special Engraved bowls are consistently excellent for healing work, relaxation and meditation.

They have a smooth and happy sound, never dark sounding and generally uplifting. A great all purpose bowl, they look beautiful, sound outstanding and feel wonderful. There is a lot about them to call Special, not just the engravings.

While the original Special Engraved bowls go back 600 years, there are modern reproductions. A similar type of engraving has been used on new bowls, copying the antiques. The difference is fairly obvious, since the new ones look extremely new with sharply cut engravings while the real antiques look smooth and worn, like those found in The Singing Bowl Museum.

If you are ever looking at singing bowls, remember to compare them to the Museum collection to get a better understanding of what you are looking at. Reproductions can quickly be spotted when compared to my collection. When in doubt, contact me to get confirmation about any antique.