A Short History

The idea of putting musical strings across a bowl occurred to me in October 1986 while I was meditating on other things: An image appeared before me of a bowl fitted with a taut, straight musical string. From there grew all the different types of Sounding Bowl that now work and play in myriad situations around the world.

Looking a little deeper the true origins of my Sounding Bowls go back at least ten years before that: When I first began turning bowls in 1978 I found the process of creating their curved forms so satisfying, that my hobbies, piano and poetry went by the board and all my creative energy went into exploring bowl forms. The curve of the wall became for me the poem, the song of the bowl’s presence.

The bowl is, for me an allegory for the human soul:

It possesses an inner space, a facing edge or rim, and a partially seen, partially unseen outer form, including the base that rests on the ground. Correspondingly, the soul has its inner space, a face it projects to society, and a partly seen and known, partly unknown relationship with the natural world by which it is supported. Thus, seeking harmony of form is, for me, allegorical for seeking inner creative harmony and development.

The concept of an archetypal harmony of form fascinated me. Following philosopher/craftsman Professor David Pye's statement that a form “…either sings or is eternally silent”, I spent years trying to create forms so intrinsically harmonious that they could almost be heard to sing (or hum) where they rested.

By 1986 I began to notice acoustic effects from the inner spaces of some bowls. One piece was sitting on the piano. The wood, still green and sap filled, was drying. Suddenly it split, making a sound so musical that two rooms rang for a second or so. This set me wondering, till the answer came that night on the bedside.

Much later I realised that music had gone underground, working its way into the forms of each piece and had resurfaced with the fitting of strings onto those forms. ~ Sound becoming form, and sound emerging from form. ~ The pursuit of harmony as the theme uniting the whole process.

A time of investigation then began. Deep-and-narrow bowls, wide-and-shallow bowls, smaller and larger rims, thick bowls and thin, all added their suggestions. For years there was no simple unifying formula of shape that could guarantee a good sound. I discovered that this acoustic effect is strongest where the interior curve follows the Golden (or Fibonacci) Spiral. I also found that each bowl had to be individually felt: I have to hear the sound that is wanted within my soul and then seek to form the bowl till it matches the sound:

The deeper the form of this curve the more intimate the sound becomes. Some of these deep bowls are used in the most difficult therapeutic situations; such as with maladjusted youths.

The more open or shallow the form the more inclusive of other listeners the sound becomes. Some of these shallow Sounding Bowls have been used by performers to throw their voice out to an audience.

After the first hundred I began to feel the presence of the form or it’s energy more strongly and found that it came through with less emotional turmoil. Now after more than two hundred Sounding Bowls have found their way into the world the form is well established and reliably good instruments flow from this workshop while sculptural development also continues.

There are several counts on which the Sounding Bowls are unique in the history of world music. Other cultures have produced instruments of vaguely similar design but none where strings sound from the inside space outwards rather than from outside the space inwards. Most stringed instruments rely on a box resonator. This might be as sophisticated as a violin or as simple as a zither but the nature of any box is to give the sound of the instrument an even spread into the space around it. Sounding Bowls are different, their Open Resonator (James, this links to the relevant section) beautifies all sound, string or voice. Even environmental sound is newly harmonised in this shape.

The fact that these instruments have no history, or tradition of right and wrong, does make them more accessible to people who want to play something but are a bit intimidated by most “musical instruments."

Twenty years on Sounding Bowls are now in use in Hospitals, Hospices, private clinics, care homes and special education situations in four continents. They are used by singers, poets, healers, registered therapists, doctors and nurses in a huge variety of situations. From all the feedback one thing can be distilled :-

Sounding Bowls are now in use in Hospitals, Hospices, private clinics, care homes and special education situations in four continents. They are used by singers, poets, healers, registered therapists, doctors and nurses in a huge variety of situations. From all the feedback one thing can be distilled :-