Gongs, Singing Bowls, Conches and other ethnic instruments have been used for millennia in sacred ceremonies but their therapeutic qualities have only been recently re-discovered. Kevin Goulding, one of the Tutors at Gong Master Training www.gongmastertraining.co.uk www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/our-programmes/programme/26580-gong-master-training explains why the sounds of these instruments have such a powerful effect on our mind, body and spirit.
Would it surprise you to know that sound is the first of our senses to develop in the womb and the last to leave us when we die? In the womb we are enveloped in amniotic fluid and constantly bathed in our mother’s body sounds – her heartbeat, respiration, digestion and voice as well as the external environmental sounds that are filtered through body tissue.
Sound is energy and like matter, has a vibration (or frequency- how fast it vibrates per second). This energy can be harnessed positively such as medical infrasound equipment used for deep tissue healing. Sound energy penetrates matter, particularly water, which is why whales are able to communicate over hundreds of miles of ocean. Water is an ideal medium for the transmission of sound.
We are more sensitive to sound than we are aware, especially on a subconscious level because our bodies have a large proportion of water. In an adult of average build, water makes up around 60% of their total body weight. The body of one weighing, say, 70 kilos (11 stone) is composed of 40 litres (72 pints) of water. We are walking sound receivers!
This is because sound interacts with our body on three levels:
*** Sounds we hear via the ear have a psycho-acoustical effect on the brain. Certain types of sound have a calming effect and actually slow down brainwaves. The brain can change from Beta waves (hard concentration and focused activity) to Alpha (calm and relaxed) to Theta (deep relaxation and visualisation) to Delta (deep sleep). During this process the logical left-brain hemisphere is gradually switched off and the intuitive, creative right hemisphere is activated.
*** Sound waves touch our physical body. These vibrations can penetrate deep into the body and be felt on a cellular level. For example, standing by a roadside as a huge lorry thunders past or being near a loudspeaker stack at a rock concert. At the other extreme one can receive more harmonious sounds at a ”gong bath” or “sonic massage”.
*** Sound vibrations interact with our subtle energy bodies. Gongs, Bowls and Conches can align and balance the mental, emotional and spiritual bodies, balance the chakras (the points where energy and matter merge on our bodies) and enable emotional blockages and imbalances to be shifted or dispersed. This also has a profound effect on our consciousness, raising our vibrational level and enabling us to access the spiritual dimensions.
www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/our-programmes/programme/26580-gong-master-training
The Bronze gong literally heralded the start of the Bronze Age around 5,500 years go by its metal being released from a super-heated rock. Singing Bowls by comparison are much younger having been created in China around 200BCE / 4,000 years ago. Around 500CE / 1,500 years ago somebody in China had the brilliant idea of turning the singing bowl upside down and installing a clapper to make the first Bell. But the natural Conch shell beats them all as the first examples of the Conch Horn Trumpet have been carbon dated to around 18,000BCE!
The Ancients knew much about sacred sound as these instruments particularly gongs were used in temples and shrines. They were also seen as symbols of status and wealth due to their scarcity as only a few people knew how to make them and protected that knowledge. The secrets of gong-making were handed down from father to son down the generations.
These instruments were made in Asia and via trade and migration carried further afield so that by the first century CE gongs were in lmperial Rome. The Bon religion in Tibet adopted into their practice gongs, bells and bowls. They were to be found throughout the Himalayan region.
It was only in the late 1960’s that the Western World re-discovered them although some insightful people like the musicologist astrologer Dane Rudhyar had been promoting the therapeutic use of the gong in a book published in 1924. Yogi Bhajan promoted gong use through his teaching of Kundalini Yoga to Americans in 1969. It was there in Los Angeles that Don Conreaux became one of Yogi’s first five Kundalini Yoga student teachers. He was told to move to Phoenix Arizona to establish and run an Ashram to rehabilitate drug addicts.
There Don realised that the Gong offered a lot more potential than via the Kundalini Yoga tradition and so in 1976 decided to walk his own pathway pioneering the benefits of Gong Therapy in conjunction with other instruments like the Conch and Singing Bowl. Don created the concept of the ‘Gong Bath’, ‘Gong Puja’, ‘Gong Yoga’ whilst developing a Teaching Course. This came to fruition with the assistance of his student, friend, assistant Tutor and Gong Maestro Aidan McIntyre. They developed this course over the period of 30 years together teaching thousands of students across four continents.
The course has evolved from a weekend to a five day to the now current ten day immersive teaching offered at Hawkwood College www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/our-programmes/programme/26580-gong-master-training . Aidan has also created a four day beginner course: Gong Initiation www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/our-programmes/programme/27436-gong-initiation and a Continuing Professional Development four day Advanced course primarily for those who have participated in the ten day course or those who have received certified training from other Tutors - Further Journeys in Gong Mastery www.hawkwoodcollege.co.uk/our-programmes/programme/27437-further-journeys-in-gong-mastery .
Don finally retired in 2024 in his 90th year passing the responsibility of continuing teaching his ‘Way of the Gong’ to Aidan ably assisted by Tim Byford and Kevin Goulding amongst other guest Tutors.
The courses are certified by the Complementary Medicine Association (CMA) of which Aidan is a Fellow.
Further information can be found at www.gongmastertraining.co.uk
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