Quality singing bowls can provide you with the opportunity to play a plethora of unique sounds both for practicing and meditation.
Once you become good at playing these incredibly calming and soothing tools for medication, you will be able to make individual sounds using a wide range of ringing tools that come with a singing bowl.
These tools come with wooden mallets and sticks that you can use to implement different methods, accentuating a wide range of characteristics of your bowl.
Making The Bowl Sing Beautifully
To get a first-hand feel of using the bowl to make soothing sounds, it will understand how exactly the bowl makes such sounds – you need to know what is propagating the sound.
As soon as you strike the bowl with the mallet, you put everything in motion. The metal ringing sends thousands of sounds waves back and forth each time you strike it. These motions also utilize a column of air to dispel sound waves.
After you strike the bowl, the series of different sounds you hear is all momentum – it is the very motion of the metal that constantly remains in motion.
The only thing that can stop this motion is friction. This problem simply won't go away. The metal bowl generates friction, and even a slight touch can completely extinguish the sounds you make.
Playing The Rim
Perhaps the most complicated technique to learn is using the rim of the bowl and play music with it using the mallet or stick.
The one thing you must always remember is that playing a singing bowl using a wooden stick or mallet is easy compared to using leather, pelt or suede. The perfect way to hold the wooden stick is to hold it like a pencil.
Your thumb should be on one side, nicely and firmly propped with your index and middle finger. This posture of holding the stick is going to provide with a nice grip as well as leverage.
To start, position the wooden stick or mallet perpendicular to the singing bowl’s plan, moving it up and down in straight strokes. You can also alter the angle of the stick, tilting the instrument towards the surface of the bowl for greater effects.
Don't forget that you have to direct the force of the hand holding the stick towards the middle of the singing bowl. The contact the wood is going to make in the center of the bowl will always remain constant this way – generating a more calming and smoother sound.
Losing your concentration or hitting the stick too hard will result in the stick bouncing right of the edge of the bowl making a rather noisy, screech like sound, defeating the purpose of the bowl.
How To Hold The Singing Bowl
The best way to hold the singing bowl is to perch it, gripping the bowl with your fingertips gently. This method will provide you with comfortability as well as the desired to control to avoid making any contact with it.
This strategy is especially important when it comes to using significantly smaller bowls. However, it much easier to hold a bigger singing bowl with the palm of your hands.
Whenever you start playing the bowl, hold it in your hand so that you can listen to the sounds produced much more closely –you will also be able to feel the vibrations coming out of it.
Moreover, make sure you play them sitting down so that you can put the bowl down the surface – at times the sounds you will produce will outlast your patience of holding the bowl. You will have to put it down somewhere.
Playing The Meditation Bowl
If your objective is to focus on the vibrations and sounds of the singing bowl to feel relaxed and internally calm, it is important to play it by gently tapping the wooden stick or mallet against the rim of the bowl.
The sounds generated will eventually lead you to a calm state of consciousness. After you make the sounds, concentrate on the meditation bowl, especially the pulses as they become mellow and slow from moderately loud.
The point where you hear no sound at all – or perceive nothing, is the exact point of conscious release you are seeking.
Bottom Line
So there you have it – playing meditation bowls isn't rocket science. However, you need to be focused and at peace with yourself whenever you meditate using the bowls.
Resources:
- TheSpruce
- wikiHow
- Quora
