What makes singing bowls sound so special?

Singing bowls have an undeniable power. Everyone who hears a singing bowl for the first time has a reaction. They look for the bowl, often smile, curious and delighted by the sound. What is it about a singing bowl sound that has such an interest and power? For this is the essential quality of the bowls. People love them because of the experience. What about the experience is actually so special?

Is it the pitch as many people believe? Look anywhere online and you may see people searching for the correct pitch, promoting a 432Hz tuning base, calculating planetary tones and so on. Pitch is the focus of a lot of mental exercise in relation to sound healing. However, pitch may not be an important factor. We hear a wide variety of musical pitches every day and they do not move us in a certain way. Singing bowls play a wide variety of pitches which all elicit a great response.

Many people focus on pitch these days, as if the correct musical frequency will answer a specific need or problem. They base these beliefs on the idea of sympathetic resonance, that the same frequency will vibrate different objects. I helped popularize this idea twenty years ago, by demonstrating that one singing bowl can make another sing by proximity. However, there is a lot of misunderstanding about this phenomenon.

For one thing, human beings are not static objects that can be vibrated like a metal bowl or Chladni plate. We are complex and dynamic beings. If we do vibrate at certain frequencies, certainly it will be more than one. Also sympathetic resonance is only one characteristic of our experience of sound. We detect the vibration through feeling and we feel more than just sympathetic vibration. The idea that cells or tissues vibrate and that we can passively affect our health with sympathetic vibration is today conjectural with no real understanding or proof of the practice. No one has yet discovered, “oh you need this note for a headache, this note for cancer.”

Such correlations have not been shown to exist, even though people wildly speculate that sound healing will help cancer by sympathetic vibration. Taking a more spiritual approach, others focus on chakras and the idea that certain musical notes correlate to chakras.

Tibetan masters call chakras “objects of meditation.” They are a way of visualizing your inner self. Concepts like chakras, winds and channels were described long before any type of X-ray, even before human anatomy had been defined. They were ways of mapping our insides based on physical feeling, mental exercise and spiritual insight.

Chakras are useful meditation devices, helping one to visualize and work with your inner self. Musical notes based on chakras are also objects of meditation; mental constructs that can be useful for personal insight. However, there is no objective reality to “chakra tones.” In fact, it is just the C major and G major musical scale, superimposed over a diagram of chakras.

The whole notion of chakra tones was invented in the 1990’s. It comes from a misinterpretation of a common saying about singing bowls. People used to say the sound would “clean your chakras,” meaning the feeling you get from the singing bowls was refreshing, invigorating, inspiring; it definitely has an inner impact. However, the notion that certain notes are needed for certain chakras was simply made up. In my opinion, it’s a case of overthinking, commercialism and the human tendency to combine things out of nervousness, even when they do not go together.

Pitch does not seem to be the most important factor. The most significant correlation I observe in relation to pitch is how relatively high or low the pitch happens to be. Most singing bowls are in the range of the human voice and we tend to like the deeper tones the best. The vibration is easier to feel physically with the deeper tones. The high tones seem to have a more curious, mystical fascination. Therefore, an easy approach to chakra meditation would be to use low tones for lower chakras, high tones for higher chakras, whatever the musical note.

Perhaps it is the timbre that makes the singing bowl sound so special? Timbre is the quality of the tone, the indefinable sonic quality that makes a singing bowl sound like a singing bowl and not a violin. What is it that makes a cello sound like a cello and a guitar sound like a guitar? Timbre changes with every physical change to an instrument. If it is bigger, smaller, made with different materials, how it is played; everything you change will change the timbre, but what is timbre?

It would seem logical that timbre is related to echo or resonance. A violin sounds like it does because of its size and shape. The air echos around in the body and that determines the sonic quality. That may be what is happening, but science has discovered resonance does not define the timbre.

In fact, timbre is defined by the harmonic profile of the instrument. Every instrument produces multiple harmonic tones, called partials. A single note played may sound like just one tone, but if you listen carefully you can hear harmonic overtones. Researchers discovered years ago that by removing the harmonic overtones of any instrument, you remove the unique quality, or timbre. In fact, if you remove the high partials of a violin and a piano, they sound exactly the same. They produce a single uncharacteristic tone, known as a sine wave.

A unique quality of singing bowls is that the harmonic overtones are very distinct. In most instruments, the harmonics blend together but in singing bowls, each overtone rings distinctly. You can hear each tone separately, with its own pitch, rhythm, intensity and duration. The harmonics define the bowl in the totality of its function. If you took away the harmonics, a singing bowl would sound like any other sine wave.

With the harmonics, we hear a chorus of three octaves. The timbre of the bowl, the unique sonic quality that makes it sound like a singing bowl, is the result of the multiple overtones. The harmonic overtones not only define the unique timbre but are essential to the singing bowl sound.

Other possibilities include more spiritual explanations. Perhaps the age of the bowls gives them timeless wisdom. Perhaps they were made while reciting thousands of mantras, imbuing the bowls with the power of prayer. Perhaps the bowls are really communicating to us and this is their way. Whatever the explanation, whether scientific, spiritual or just repeating what everyone else says, the fact is undeniable: singing bowls have an instant power to calm the body and center the mind.

Why do they have this effect? For me, there is no explanation of this phenomenon but I can describe it. The special experience is a combination of the multiple harmonic tones and the physical vibration of the bowl. The bowls pulse, sending their vibration outward in all directions. If you place a microphone in the direct center of a singing bowl, you will hear silence. There is a silence in the exact middle, as the vibration travels outward. When the vibrations travel inward, they are cancelled out in the middle.

The energy of the vibration pulses in and out but there is a spiral movement as the energy races around the rim of the bowl, producing an outward spiraling pulse. The quality of this energetic movement is the key to singing bowl power.

Sound is the actual movement of energy. The sound energy travels through the air, displacing particles as it moves. Those particles bump into adjacent particles and the wave continues until the energy is dissipated by all those moving particles. This transfer of energy changes the movement of the particles in the air.

This is how singing bowls change the feeling in a room. If you play a singing bowl in a room for a while, especially a nice antique, you will notice the environment has a more peaceful feeling. The vibrations of the bowl have harmonized the movement of particles in the room. Stray vibrations that bounce around are canceled out. The gentle, lapping vibrations of the singing bowl replace whatever leftover vibrations were in the room.

This is where science and spirituality meet. It is an actual fact of the sound vibrations interacting on a microscopic level and having a real impact. Yet the results are subtle and spiritual. The room is more peaceful. It is better for enlightened activities. It does help one progress spiritually.

Furthermore, sound carries our intention. Just as intention is carried by your tone of voice and attitude, not just the words you say, so intention and compassion can be expressed through the singing bowl sounds. This is another phenomenon I cannot explain but I know it exists. Play the bowl with an open mind, clear awareness and compassionate intention. Simply form a clear intention, think it through and imagine your intention being successful. As you play the bowl, waves of your intention travel outward with the sound. Replace negative thinking habits with this practice. It can be the basis for daily meditation practice and lead to real life changing results.

What makes a singing bowl sound so special? I would say it is the human hearing it. Hearing has been found to be an evolution of the sense of touch. We actually feel the sounds we hear. Singing bowls therefore are even more special because they produce sounds that are so clearly felt.

We make it special by feeling it, but without the bowls we would be missing out. We would never experience this unique sonic feeling without them. They have the innate power of pure vibration. Their ability to vibrate freely, completely, with sufficient complexity, makes them useful tools. The magical quality of the tone makes them truly unique and special. This is why they can be used for inner transformation. They are inspirational vibrational tools.

The inherent harmonic tones, ringing independently in three octaves, the spiral of vibrational energy, the human quality to the tone, the center point of stillness, the gradually fading tone, the centuries of molecular change. These are some of the qualities that make the singing bowls unique, meaningful and helpful. At least that is what I think. What do you think makes the sound so special?