How to Play a Singing Bowl

“Around-The-Rim” Technique

1. Hold the singing bowl on the flat palm of your nondominant hand. For smaller bowls, five inches and under, hold on your fingertips.
2. Grasp the mallet about mid-length, with all the fingertips pointing downwards and touching the wood. (If you are using one of our padded mallets, the red wool should be on top.) Palm downward.
3. With an even pressure, rub the mallet clockwise around the outside edge of the rim of the bowl. Use a full arm movement, just like stirring a big kettle of soup, and keep the mallet straight up and down! Again, it’s not a wrist movement, but a full-arm movement. Remember to apply pressure– the friction of the mallet against the outer rim produces vibrations which result in sound.

Experiment with your speed. Usually, people go too fast! Let the sound build up slowly as the singing bowl picks up the vibration. As the sound builds, it’s ok to slow your speed, while pressing a little harder.

Isolating the Fundamental

This technique requires awareness, breath, and concentration. You can isolate the fundamental (the lowest tone of the bowl) by massaging the wall’s exterior with the leather-covered end of the mallet. The bowl should be ideally resting on your flat, open hand. if you grasp the bowl’s base, you will dampen the fundamental tone. Make sure your mallet is in direct contact with the bowl’s surface, and experiment with using gentle, even pressure. Thicker bowls will require more pressure, thinner bowls will just need a light touch. Make sure your mallet is flush against the bowl’s wall: straight, not pointed inwards. Rotate the leather end of the mallet around the bowl at least four or five times. It may take a while for the sound to build, but by then, you should at least be feeling the vibration of the fundamental. Note: the fundamental is a subtler volume than the rim tone.

Breaking in Your Mallet

The mallet that comes with your Tibetan singing bowl is handmade of Himalayan hardwood. When you play the bowl, using the mallet-around-the-rim technique, the friction of the mallet produces vibrations which result in sound. In the beginning the mallet is relatively smooth, but as you continue to use it it will develop “micro-grooves”, shallow grooves which help to grab more of the playing edge of the bowl. Allow about five minutes for initial break-in of a new mallet. As you use the mallet more the micro-grooves become impressed in the mallet and you will get better sound and easier playing from your bowl.

ADVANCED TECHNIQUES

The Wah-Wah

Most all Tibetan singing bowls have natural wah-wahs which you can amplify and bend by using the wah-wah technique.

1. Get the bowl singing by using the mallet-around-the-rim technique described above. Pull the mallet away from the bowl and let the bowl continue to sing.
2. While still holding the bowl in your hand, raise the bowl up to your mouth so that the outside rim is just above the opening of your mouth and about an inch away.
3. Open and close your mouth while thinking of the sound wah-wah. You are not actually making any sound with your mouth, but simply changing the shape of the oral cavity so as to allow the sound of the singing bowl to bounce around inside of your mouth and then be reflected back. By changing the size of the oral cavity, you are modulating the sound!

Experiment with the relative position of your mouth to the outside bowl rim. Also, if you turn the bowl, while experimenting with the wah-wah effect, you will find “hot spots” where the bowl is naturally louder.

Water Bowl Sounds

A special sound effect can be produced by adding a small amount of water to the bottom of some Manipuri singing bowls. The sounds produced using this technique sound like dolphins singing!

1. The amount of water to use varies with the individual bowl. Start by pouring about 3/4″ of water into the bowl. Be careful NOT to get the outside rim of the bowl wet.
2. Now, play the bowl using the mallet-around- the-rim technique. Bring up the sound by using a steady even pressure. Pull the mallet away from the bowl rim and let the bowl continue to sing.
3. Still holding the bowl in your hand, tilt the bowl so that the water inside gently laps up toward the inside rim. Continue to gently swirl and tilt the bowl and the water.

Experiment with the amount of water used. Usually, the best effect is produced with a minimum amount of water.