What's The Secret Of Himalayan Singing Bowls?
In this article, you will learn about the unique sonic properties of Himalayan Singing Bowls (also known as Tibetan Singing Bowls and Sound Healing Bowls). We will discuss what distinguishes the sound of singing bowls from other sounds and how listening to the singing bowl can influence mental, emotional, and physical states. You will be provided with interesting facts about the imprint of harmony within the structure of sound, dissonance, and brainwave entrainment.
Many sound healing academies, schools, and private teachers prescribe mystical properties to the sound of singing bowls. The myths about Chakra healing with seven sacred metals Tibetan singing bowls are spread all over the internet. After getting familiar with the nature of the singing bowl’s sound described in this work, you will start seeing why Himalayan singing bowls are chosen by so many sound healing and sound therapy practitioners.
No, it has nothing to do with which chakra can be healed, cleansed, balanced, or open by the specific note sounded by the singing bowl. The sound of Himalayan singing bowls is just hacking the perception of the listener. Wanna know how? Read this article through the end, and share it with the sound healing practitioners you know!
From the author
My name is Guy Beider. Since my youth, I have been searching for a way to improve myself and help others. While studying the properties and benefits of psychedelic plants, I was invited to the Amazonian sacred medicine ceremony in 2007. It was suggested that I prepare for the journey by following a specific diet. The person who invited me stressed that I must come with an intention to enter the journey. Although it seemed easy to follow the diet, I struggled to figure out what intention should I bring to the Ayahuasca ceremony. I wasn't sure what I should ask for from my experience with this sacred plant, and I was unable to understand the meaning of the word "sacred." I decided to make it my intention to seek out what is sacred for myself.
Here I am, this is my first experience with Mother Ayahuasca. I feel mentally and emotionally overwhelmed. There is no turning back. It is inevitable that I will fall into insanity. But, all of a sudden I find myself in a state of complete emptiness and oneness within the entire creation. It is difficult to quantify how long I was in this state of bliss. The next thing that captured my essence was a sound. It was the sound of a Himalayan singing bowl!
The moment I heard this beautiful sound of the singing bowl, I skipped my breath and my heart stopped beating. After a long pause, I realized that this was the sound I had been searching for. It felt like my perception was hacked. I felt something inside me declare that sound is sacred.
After the ceremony, I came back home as a new person. I knew now that my purpose is to educate myself about the benefits of sound and to share the sonic beauty that Singing Bowls have to offer to people. Since 2011, I have conducted hundreds of sound meditations (sound baths) and nourished thousands of people with the soothing frequencies of Himalayan singing bowls. In 2018 I founded an online sound healing academy.
What is Himalayan (Tibetan) Singing Bowl?
A singing bowl is a bell that rests on the horizontal surface and has the opening facing upward. You can make the sound by striking the bowl with a special mallet. Singing bowls can also be played using a friction mallet by rubbing the mallet against the bowl's rim.
*Antique Himalayan singing bowls
The oldest Himalayan singing bowls (more commonly, but misleadingly called "Tibetan singing bowls") are between 600 and 800 years old. Experts have told me that the first singing bowls were created between 2800 and 3000 years ago. This is what I believe.
Through my years of research, I have discovered many beautiful myths and theories about the origin of singing bowls. Some myths are simply too simplistic and do not connect with reality.
I don't want to spread myths. Instead, I will share my "grounded" view of why I think a singing bowl is an exceptional sounding object.
Experts agree that singing bowls are Mesopotamian and were most likely used to store food. Through the established Silk Road trading network, they were able to travel all across the Himalayas. These instruments were adopted by several Buddhist temples to perform rituals and collect offerings later on in history. Singing bowls are still found in Buddhist monasteries throughout Japan, India, Tibet, Korea, and China. Buddhist monks from Nepal and Tibet were holding a particular type of singing bowl in order to collect donations.
The sonic properties of the bowls have been recognized for centuries, regardless of whether they were used to store food or produce sound. It is clear from the physical properties of bronze, the material used to make singing bowls, and the design of the vessel that acoustic properties were of paramount importance.
Since the late 1960s, Westerners have known about Himalayan singing bowls. These instruments traveled with the spiritual seekers that visited India to Europe, America, and other countries.
It was immediately clear that the sound of singing bowls could help with stress, anxiety, and blood pressure. Concentrating on the complex sounds of singing bowls can be a great way to meditate and improve your cognitive abilities.
While not much information is available about the history of singing bowls, practitioners of holistic medicine (sound therapy), are learning new skills and creating techniques to use singing bowls for restoring harmony and balance.
Although there are many skeptics about singing bowls you will find that singing bowls work if you learn how to pick the right one, what to do with it, and how to listen to it properly.
The market is overflowing with "authentic Tibetan singing bowls". To begin with, the name "Tibetan", is a misnomer. In many cases, you will be offered machine-made bowls from China or India. Even hand-hammered replicas have a sonic similarity to authentic instruments. The sound of these machine-made bowls is often not as soft, pleasant, and complex as the timbre of the original singing bowls.
*Contemporary machine-made Chinese singing bowl
Original Himalayan singing bowls have unique sonic characteristics. Let's get in on the action and find out what is so special about their sound. But first, let's briefly talk about the terminology and share some interesting facts about sound.
What is sound?
Vibrations are created by any physical object that is in motion. Sound refers to vibrations that are transmitted by pressure waves through a medium such as gas or liquid.
In human physiology, sound is a perception of these pressure waves that are registered and processed by the hearing organs, skin, and bones.
What is frequency?
Every vibration that recurs at regular intervals has a "frequency" or a "pitch".
Frequency is a measure of how FREQUENT a cycle of motion occurs within a given time unit. Vibration with no periodic activity has no frequency. Hertz (Hz) is the unit of frequency measurement. One cycle per second is one Hz.
* An adult can hear sounds between 20 and 20000Hz.
Sound partials (overtones, harmonics)
Let's now discuss timbre, a very important property in sound. The character of the sound (or "timbre") is what makes your voice distinctive or makes a flute sound different from a horn. Timbre refers to the structure of the sound. It's the sound's color, its roughness, and firmness, as well as its brightness and spice.
Like the sunlight can be broken down into seven colors, the natural timbre of any sound (except for a pure tone) is a mixture of many frequencies. Each one of these frequencies is called sound partial. Each of these frequencies has its own volume and pitch.
It is the "fundamental" sound that makes up the strongest part of a timbre. The fundamental tone is the lowest sounding part of a timbre. Overtones refer to other (higher pitched) partials.
Overtones have a higher pitch than the fundamental and are usually appear in a certain ratio to the fundamental tone. It is almost impossible to distinguish them individually by ear.
The overtone is called "harmonic" when the ratio between its frequency and the frequency of fundamental (F) tone equals a positive integer multiple.
A natural series of harmonics are present in every voice, every musical instrument, and almost every natural sound. For example, string instruments, as well as human voices, would display the entire series of multiple integers (ranging from 1xF, 2xF, and 3xF to infinite). Closed-to-open air column instruments (didgeridoos, horns and clarinets) only have odd harmonics 1xF, 3xF, 5xF, 7xF, etc. Open-open pipes (organ pipes, flutes, and whistles) have a timbre that includes all integer multiples frequencies; 1xF, 2xF, 3xF, 4xF, 5xF, etc.
* These screenshots were taken from a sound analyzer application. The first picture shows the broken down-to-many sound partials timbre of my voice. I am singing a 100Hz fundamental tone. Take a look at the frequency spikes. The fundamental tone is at 100Hz. Next, 200Hz is the higher frequency spike (second harmonic). Other harmonics are at the frequencies of 300Hz, 400Hz, and so on.
* The next screenshot shows a graphic representation of the timbre of my guitar. I tuned one of the strings to 100Hz (please ignore the minor errors). You can see that the overtones ratios are very similar to my voice sound partials: 2xF, 3xF, 4xF, 5xF, and so on (200/100; 300/100; 400/100; 500/100).
*Let's now take a look at what the timber looks like in a didgeridoo. From the perspective of physics, the didgeridoo can be described as a close-open end pipe.
*The fundamental tonal value is 118.7Hz. The first overtones' frequency is 355Hz. This is three times the frequency (disregarding a minor error) of the fundamental tonal tone. It can be called a third harmonic. The second overtone is at 592.5Hz. It is five times more than the fundamental tone and therefore, we can also call it the fifth harmonic.
Dissonance and consonance
Let me now talk about how we perceive sound when we listen to more than one tone. What makes certain tones more pleasant than others?
Two subjective concepts that describe the perception of a particular sequence of tones are dissonance and consonance.
Consonance can be described as pleasantness, sweetness, acceptance, and harmony. Dissonance can be associated with unacceptability, harshness, or unpleasantness and tension.
Some believe that consonant ratios were discovered in ancient Greece. This discovery can be attributed to Pythagoras, a mathematician who also happened to be a philosopher.
It goes like this: Pythagoras plucked a string under tension and placed a bridge between the fixed ends. He discovered that when the bridge is dividing the string at the ratio of 2:1 (an octave), it sounded pleasant along with the initial sound of the undivided length of the same string. Another pleasant sound resulted from the division of the string at the ratio 3:2 (perfect fifth).
If we want to understand what makes two tones sound pleasant (consonant), we will have to explore what is happening with their harmonics. It is possible that certain combinations of tones, also known as musical intervals, share similar frequencies in terms of their natural harmonics series.
TABLE OF COMMON HARMONICS (10 HARMONICS)
BETWEEN THE DISSONANT AND CONSONANT INTERVALS
* This table shows five tones that are scaled according to the musical system of interval subdivision, also known as "Pure Intonation". These tones were not compared to actual musical notes to simplify the demonstration. However, I retained the musical ratios between them.
The "Base" note serves as a reference note, from which we can build dissonant and consonant musical intervals. 100Hz is the fundamental tone for the Base.
Knowing the sequence of natural harmonic series, we assigned the values 200Hz to the second harmonic and 300Hz to the third harmonic, respectively.
The dissonant musical interval is the minor second (m2). Its ratio to base note is 16/15. We multiply 100Hz by 16/15 to calculate the fundamental tone for the minor second interval. The result is 106.6666Hz.
The second harmonic in the resulting interval is; 106.6666Hz times two 213.3333Hz. The frequency of the third harmonic is triple the frequency of the fundamental tone (106.6666x3=320Hz)
The Major second (M2) is the next dissonant interval. It is 9/8 in relation to the base note.
We multiply 100 times 9/8 to calculate the fundamental tone for the Major second interval. This gives me 112.5Hz.
The second harmonic, 225Hz, is twice as loud. The frequency of the third harmonic is three times that of 112.5, so it's triple.
Let's take a look at whether the harmonics of these two dissonant intervals are matching with the harmonics of the base note.
You can see that they only match at one point; the ninth harmonic of the base note (900Hz), shares the same numerical value as the eighth harmonic of the major second interval tone (900Hz).
*Take a look at the common harmonics that appear between the base note and two consonant intervals, the perfect octave (PO) and the perfect fifth (P5 ), and see how many common harmonics they share with the base.
Both consonant and dissonant intervals have been equally used in the music-making process for centuries. And who would disagree that music can hack the brain?!
Now we will talk about two very specific cases of dissonance that are not being implemented in music composition and yet are often infused in the New Age genre.
These two cases of dissonance apparently have a significant impact on brain activity. They are called monaural beats and binaural beats.
When sounds of dissimilar frequencies enter the inner ear, they provoke different areas of the basilar membrane to vibrate according to the frequency of the signal. An overlapping response results on the basilar membrane from two frequencies that are very close in pitch.
The brain can't distinguish between interfering frequencies if they are nearly the same. Instead, we hear an average frequency. This average frequency is perceived as a pulsating sound often called a "beat".
The difference in pitch between the frequencies entering your ear will increase the rate of the beats, eventually making these two frequencies distinct as separate tones.
When the two audio signals close to each other in pitch (frequency) are sounding from two sources (the right channel of headphones for one signal and the left for the second signal), the beats that result as synchronization of two signals are called "binaural beats".
Monaural beats are a phenomenon where two tones of slightly different frequencies sound from the same source (overlapped frequencies playing from one speaker).
Brainwaves
All our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are rooted in communication between neurons within our brain. "Brainwaves" result from the synchronization of electrical impulses from neurons communicating with each other.
What we know as a continuous spectrum of consciousness is the activity of electrical waves of various patterns. Brainwaves are affected by our mental, emotional, and physical activity.
Brainwaves can be divided into bandwidths that assign each wave specific characteristics, ranging from low to high mental activity. Anything that alters your perception changes your brainwaves.
Hertz (Hz) is the unit that measures brainwave frequency. Bands of brainwave frequencies are used to describe slow, moderate, or fast modulations.
Please note that, while our brains exhibit numerous wave patterns simultaneously, the observation of the dominant brain wave pattern will reflect the current state of the brain activity.
Brainwaves are measured with an electroencephalograph (EEG). An electroencephalograph (EEG) measures electrical activity at the brain's surface. The EEG machine displays this activity as waveforms with varying frequencies and amplitudes.
* Disclaimer: The following brainwave characteristics were gathered from various internet sources and summarized here. This article does not endorse the validity of this information.
Infra-low (<0.5Hz)
We know very little about infralow brainwaves. Because of their slow pace, they are difficult to detect and measure. They appear to be important in the brain's timing and network function.
Delta waves (0.5 to 4Hz)
Delta brainwaves are the slowest waves with a high amplitude. Delta brainwaves can be generated in deepest meditation and dreamless sleep.
This state stimulates the body's regeneration. That is why deep restorative sleeping is important for wellness.
Theta waves (4-8Hz)
In deep meditation and REM sleep, we will see that the Theta brainwaves are dominant brain wave patterns. They are known to be a gateway for memory, learning, and the body's knowledge. When Theta waves dominate our senses become more focused on the signals within than on the external world.
Many believe that Theta refers to a state where we can access our intuition and other information beyond what our conscious awareness allows.
Alpha waves (8 TO 12Hz)
Alpha waves are most commonly generated in the occipital lobe region during wakeful relaxation with closed eyes. Open eyes, drowsiness, and sleep all reduce the alpha waves.
Alpha brain wave patterns were believed to represent the activity of the visual cortex in an idle state. Recent research suggests that they may inhibit cortex areas that are not being used or play an active role in network coordination and communication.
Alpha waves are dominant in quiet flowing thoughts and in meditative states. Alpha waves improve mental coordination, calmness, and alertness, as well as learning.
Beta waves (12 to 38Hz)
When we are focused on cognitive tasks or the outside world, beta brainwaves are the dominant brain wave patterns. Beta brainwave activity is fast and occurs when the brain is engaged in problem solving, alertness, making decisions, or focusing on any mental activity.
The three levels of beta brainwaves can be divided into low-Beta (12-15Hz), which is a state of slow mental engagement. Mid-Beta (15-22Hz), on the other hand, is high engagement and actively thinking about something. Hi-Beta (22-38%Hz) is associated with complex thinking, high anxiety, and excitement or integration of new experiences.
Gamma waves (38 TO 42Hz)
The fastest waves are called gamma brainwaves. These waves are related to the simultaneous processing of information from different brain regions. If our brain is calm and transparent, information is being transmitted with high frequencies but low amplitude. Information is quickly and quietly passed by gamma waves.
One of the speculations is that Gamma patterns modulate perception and that a greater presence of Gamma waves relates to expanded consciousness and spiritual emergence.
Brainwave Entrainment
Brainwave entrainment is a method to stimulate the brain's electrical response to rhythmic sensory stimulation, such as pulsating light, sound, or electromagnetic field.
External (entraining pulses) trigger the brain's frequency following response, which aligns it to the frequency of a signal. Brainwave entrainment is a common way to induce relaxation, trance, and enhanced focus.
What can be done with the binaural and monaural beats in the brainwave entrainment methodology?
Entrainment occurs when the observer is conscious of listening to the bandwidths of frequencies and engages with a certain rate of beats resulting from the difference of sounding signals. To slow down brain activity, choose slower beats; to increase activity, increase the arithmetical differences between the contributing frequencies in order to speed up the rate of pulsations.
What is being practiced today as brainwave entrainment is not a new concept. The relationship between rhythmic entrainment of music and altered states was understood by ancient yogis and shamans. To heal and enter the realms of spirit, rhythmic breathing, rhythmic movement, and drumming were all used throughout the history of humankind.
Since the 1970s, digitally encoded audio beats and strobe lights have been developed. Brainwave entrainment is the subject of a lot of marketing hype. There are many gadgets available today, including music and apps that claim to stabilize brainwaves. These products may be advertised as promising to increase IQ, promote weight loss, get rid of addictions, and enhance creativity.
These claims might not be valid in all cases, but they could be not altogether false. In practice, these claims may be based upon a simplistic view of brainwave function.
Listening to Overtone-emitting Instruments
"Game of Tones"
We have already learned that almost all natural sounds are composed of multiple, or in some cases infinite, sound partials. We hear the combination of sounds as a superimposed sound and cannot distinguish between the partials.
Humankind has learned to isolate these sound partials and make instruments that produce distinctive overtones. Some cultures also have the ability to distinguish overtones using their voices. Throat (overtone) singing and overtone emitting instruments have a special place in history.
Meditative, therapeutical, and even mystical properties have been claimed for overtone-emitting instruments all because these instruments have special effects on the listener's attention like no other.
Let's explore what happens when we listen to overtone-emitting instruments such as a Himalayan singing bowl.
Our ears and the stream of consciousness, naturally flow with the timbre, which has no distinguished separation between sound partials.
Different zones of our attention are attracted to the sound partials that sound isolated from one another. It just hacks the patterns of anything we naturally listen to. Focusing on a sound with prominent sound partials can even split the consciousness of the observer. But please don't consider my statements to be scientific facts.
You can hear multiple tones when a Himalayan singing bowl vibrates (polyphony). You may hear three, four, or more sonic serpents if you pay attention. Each serpent has a unique color, length, shape, and form of a wriggling corps. Each serpent is running to the void at different speeds, and each serpent's hiding place behind the curtain of silence is unique.
Based on the observations made while analyzing the frequencies of thousands of bowls at Bells of Bliss, a singing bowl measuring 6-12 inches in diameter will often have the presence of the 3rd, 6th, 10th, and 14th harmonics. Some Himalayan singing bowls may show the presence of the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th, 12th, and 14th harmonics. However, it is not uncommon for the ratios of sound partials to be unpredictable in the timbre of singing bowls.
Before we proceed, I would like to point out that the sound partials that Himalayan singing bowls emit can be very disharmonious. It is possible to see that the ratios between the overtones are not multiple integers of the fundamental tone.
The absence of a consistent pattern that characterizes the timbre is not the only thing that defines Himalayan singing bowls as such unique instruments. There is another very unique property in the timbre of Himalayan singing bowls. Each sound partial is not determined by one frequency, but rather by two or three frequencies. The interference of these frequencies makes the bowl sound like it is pulsating. These pulsations are the monaural beats.
* Take a closer look at the following screenshot. This picture was taken as I was analyzing a singing bowl from my collection. Its fundamental tone is closest to 100Hz. To demonstrate calculations of harmonics in an easy way for everyone, I chose this bowl.
*As you can see, the fundamental tonal frequency is determined by two frequencies: 102.1Hz and 104.3Hz. The bowl emits 2.2 monaural beats per second (which corresponds to the Delta brainwaves).
The second harmonic Fx2 (first overtone) is 209,8Hz and 204.3Hz. The pulse of this sound partial is slightly faster than one of the fundamental. It beats 5.5 times per second (corresponds to the Theta brainwaves).
The third harmonic Fx3 (second overtone) is defined by 311.9Hz and 306.9Hz. The rate is 5 monaural beats per second (corresponds to the Theta brainwaves).
The Fourth harmonic Fx4 (third overtone) is 414.1Hz and 409.9Hz. The rate of monaural beats is 4.2, which corresponds to the Theta brainwaves.
* The screenshot above is the timbre for the same singing bowl but scrolled to register of higher frequencies. This screenshot shows the appearance of the 6th, 9th, 12th, and 14th harmonics.
It is very pleasant to listen to the singing bowl that we have just analyzed. The sound partials are in a harmonious relationship, and the rate at which each note pulsates is slow. This is not true for all singing bowls.
*Please see the next image and allow me to explain this strange instrument.
* The screenshot above reflects the timbre of the singing bowl it is just hard to listen to for an extended period of time. The timbre of this particular bowl is somewhat irritating. I was experimenting with playing this bowl to hundreds of people and they all, with no exception, found it as a strong focus magnetizer and alarming instrument.
Take a look at the differences in the timbers of these two bowls.
The first singing bowl we analyzed, showed evidence of the fundamental tone, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 6th, 9th, 12th, and 14th harmonics.
The second bowl's timbre consists only of the fundamental tone, 2nd 3rd, and 6th harmonics.
The fundamental tone for the second bowl is determined by two frequencies that are 9.8Hz apart (246.2Hz & 236.4Hz). As you can imagine, pulsation at such a fast rate (9.8 beats per second) does not sound very relaxing. Instead, the sound of this singing bowl draws the focus of the listener and after a short time, listening to this bowl can create some tension. Please pay attention to the first overtone: its frequencies are 492.4Hz and 472.8Hz. The monaural beats in this case are even faster than the pulsations created by the frequencies of the fundamental tone.
Striking a singing bowl creates dynamic deformations of the vessel. The walls of the bowl expand and contract relative to its center. The bowl will repetitively deform creating complex geometrical forms and eventually revert to its original circular shape before embarking upon another expansion or contraction. As its energy dissipates throughout repetitions, the bowl will come to rest... in its original shape.
Each expansion of the bowl creates a sound. Each contraction produces a slightly different sound. These two sounds have a slight difference in frequencies and amplitude. The "pulsating" (or "fluctuating") effect is easily identifiable as a signature of each metal singing bowl. The overlapping outcome of slightly different frequencies is a dissonance that manifests through monaural beats. This same phenomenon occurs simultaneously with all the sound partials of each singing bowl!
While the fundamental tone pulsates with a slow rhythm, the overtones can beat faster or slower (depending on each bowl). The pulse beats faster if there's a greater difference between the two contributing frequencies of the same partial. The rate of these modulations is a function of the bowl's physical properties such as its shape and dimensions, consistency of thickness of the wall, and molecular structure.
As soon as the singing bowl is struck, several pulsating layers inhabit the acoustic space.
Each sound partial beats in a different rhythm. The relationship between these sound partials is often compatible with the natural harmonic series.
We are born with the ability to recognize harmony. Harmonic tones are evoked in us with high esthetics and emotional admiration. It is not a difficult task to find a singing bowl that has harmonically aligned partials, but the paradox of singing bowls lies in the coexistence of harmony and dissonance.
Harmony is found in the consonant intervals of the sound partials (harmonics), while dissonant interference is manifested through the monaural beats.
You may recall the analogy between sound partials and the sunlight diffracted to seven basic colors. Imagine that you are viewing a flight of a colorful hummingbird whose body offsets to many separate images of different colors. I am choosing this visual analogy to emphasize that each sound partial in the timbre of a singing bowl is individually distinguished. It appears that the red image flies apart beside the orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet images of the same hummingbird. One psychedelic hummingbird! Ha!
But there's more... Each of these monochromatic hummingbirds swings the wings at a different pace, exactly like each sound partial of a singing bowl's timbre is pulsating to its beat.
The unique sound of Himalayan singing bowls is captivating on many levels. Through my years of experience with singing bowls, I've witnessed many miracles and breakthroughs occur to the listeners. Conscious listening to the sound of Himalayan singing bowls is a great practice of meditation and self-development. The sound of Himalayan singing bowls is the sound that makes me silent, it is the sound that helps me to become open to listening. It can be difficult to concentrate on such a complex game of tones, but the reward is in the calmness and clarity that comes with conscious listening.