After going to a singing bowl meditation session, I wanted to know everything about them. So I started researching them and wanted to share it with you.
Singing bowls are typically made either of a bronze metal alloy, or you can find crystal singing bowls among the singing bowl practitioners. This is the fast response, but if you have time, I’ll share the details of what I found out below.
Where Did Singing Bowls Come From
The singing bowls are really considered standing bells and are believed to have originated in the Himalayan region near Nepal and India. There are typically two types that you’ll see and can have:
- Tibetan singing bowl or Himalayan Singing Bowl
- Crystal singing bowl
Many say that the Tibetan singing bowls were brought to Tibet from India about 3,000 years ago to the Buddhist Monks in Tibet.
Tibetan Singing Bowls Made From
Many of these types of singing bowls are made from different metal alloys. Most are from bronze with anything from one to a dozen other metals mixed in with the bronze.
The most popular bronze alloy for the singing bowls is a mixture of copper and tin. This mixture is pretty durable against corrosion.
What are the antique singing bowls
Many people have bowls that they’ve inherited or bought at an estate sale. The antique singing bowls are the oldest of the bowls and you can tell the difference by looking at a few items.
First, the antique singing bowls are made out of bronze alloy. This is different from many of the newer bowls that are made more out of a brass mixture.
The antique singing bowls were hand formed. The hot metal would be poured out and hand shaped into a bowl while the metal was still warm. There are several other items that make them different as well. The patina on these bowls are usually more prominent. You also have to be careful with the patina since many fake antique bowl makers will try to create a patina look.
Singing bowl are actually considered to be bells that are inverted and made with bell metals.
These singing bowls have more overtones and produce several harmonics because of the fact that different metals in the alloys vibrate at different frequencies.
What Are Crystal Singing Bowls Made Of?
These are probably my favorite since my first introduction into sound therapy was by being “bathed” in sound using these.
Crystal singing bowls have become more popular over the recent years. These singing bowls are made of quartz crystal and hold some of their own energy.
Quartz is known to vibrate at a certain frequency itself, so it adds to the sound during healing sessions.
Many people think that the crystal singing bowls are more effective because they can get the notes and sounds better to help work with healing and balancing.
If you’ve ever been to a sound healing meditation, you’ve probably seen these bowls. They come in either a frosted style or can be clear, but different colors. My first sound meditation, the bowls they had were frosted and the sound was amazing to me.
How are Crystal Singing Bowls Made
Most of the crystal singing bowls are made from silica sand.
One of the first companies to offer the crystal bowls made it out of pure quartz. They’d heat quartz up to 4,000 degrees, when it melts and pour it into graphite molds to make the bowls. Recently, they’ve started to add different metals and crystals to increase the effectiveness for healing with the bowls.
These crystal bowls typically have a wooden stick with suede to make the sounds that resonate with our souls.
The thickness, height, and diameter are what makes the bowls perfect resonance.
Choose the Right Singing Bowl for Your Application
Each singing bowl can be put together depending on what you want to do with it. You can get singing bowl kits that correspond with the chakras to help with clearing any blockages.
How do they get the notes right when making them
Many of the older ones when made actually didn’t have the right notes. They were more in a range of the octave. Less than 1 % would be perfect on the pitch. With the time and ware of the bowls. though, they mellowed and improved in sound over the years.
Since they are able to be more precise with the crystal bowls, they can get the notes and frequencies very close to true notes.
Thanks so much for your research and compiling it in a pleasant format. That was helpful for me to get started in researching how much that temperature is going to affect the frequency that metal singing bowls produce. I knew I wouldn’t be able to calculate it exactly because of the variation of metals in singing bowls, but now I can at least start by finding the equations for calculating Young’s modulus in Bronze and Brass. Thank you! If you have any more information on this, I would be honored by your sharing. Peace and Good Vibes. -Erik