The Singing Bowl: A practical and spiritual handbook for metal singing bowls

Maybe you have one bowl on a shelf. You were given it, or you bought it in a shop because it felt right in your hands, and it makes a nice enough sound when you hit it, and you have a strong suspicion that there is more in it than you are getting.

There is. Far more.

Maybe you lay down at a soundbath, got up an hour later feeling like a different person, and have not stopped thinking about it since. Or you already work with people, in massage, in yoga, in therapy, in nursing, and you have started bringing bowls into the room.

This book is for all of you. It starts with one bowl on a cushion and ends with a set played for a room, and it explains every step in between.

Striking, rimming and damping, and how to hear the whole of a fade
How a bowl actually makes its sound, and why it never settles on one note
Two bowls close in pitch, and the slow beat they make together
Choosing bowls, mallets and wands, and what the hammer marks tell you
Where these instruments really come from, and which of the popular stories hold up
Running a set for a room, and how to bring one to an end
Looking after what you own, and what to do when a bowl will not sing

Written for complete beginners. You do not need to have done a course, you do not need to read music, and you do not need to own a bowl yet.

Where something is well established, I say so. Where research is still developing, I make that clear. Where we move into tradition, practitioner experience or personal interpretation, I keep those things distinct rather than presenting everything as fact.

Éanna Healy teaches sound medicine at Revival Harmony in Limerick, Ireland.