1j Notes and chakras. Really?!

There are many "authorities" in sound healing, and some of them are misrepresenting the subject by spreading unreliable teachings. I know that some of these teachers were themselves misled, and they strongly believe that there is nothing invalid with the knowledge they teach. They have the best intentions, projecting so much love and caring, but yet, if you choose to blindly follow the path they offer, will you discover the truth?

Unfortunately, there are also fake gurus, and I will allow myself to say: BE AWARE OF SPIRITUAL FRAUD!

*The key is, no matter what story you tell, make the buyer the hero.

Chris Brogan

When I started my research on singing bowls, a major part of the information I was absorbing seemed to be nonsense. One of my big doubts was related to the resonance of chakras as ascribed to the notes of the modern Western musical scale.

Many websites and physical stores that offer singing bowls for sale will tell you which bowl will work best with a particular chakra. Even when you go to India, Nepal or Tibet you will be offered to purchase the "chakra attuned healing singing bowls". 

When I interviewed elder healers in Nepal and spoke to a shaman of the Bon Po tradition, they weren't familiar with the concept of the Western musical scale or relating certain notes to chakras. Yet, if you are looking for a singing bowl, someone may just say to you: “Yes sir or madam, you tell me you are having difficulties with self-expression – here is a throat chakra singing bowl! Do you have a broken heart? – I have just the thing for you! The note "F" will work with your heart chakra!”

The “authentic” Tibetan sound healing teachers will share with you a technique which is based on Western musical scale system (frequencies of the modern scale). The placement of the bowls around the participant's body by this "authentic" technique is nothing but a combination of consonant sequence – perfect fifths! Here’s an example of such singing bowl placement: F, C, G, D, A, E, B (when F2 bowl is being placed by the feet or first chakra, note C3 next to the second chakra, G3 solar plexus, D4 heart, A4 throat, E5 third eye, and B5 crown chakra). 

As you can see, the perfect fifths circle starts with the note F2 (in my experience, the most commonly found big, antique Jambati bowls are F2 and G2) and goes all the way to the note B5. 

Why does this system suggest starting with the note F2? There is no evidence for that in any of the ancient texts! The notes of the modern Western scale could not have been mentioned in ancient teachings because that scale had not been created yet! Note F2 has a precise frequency which, in the case of A4=440Hz, is equal to 87.31Hz. For those who prefer the tuning of A4=432Hz, F2 has a value of 85.72Hz. If you apply Just Intonation tuning, first you have to define what note and what frequency you are taking as a reference to calculate the ratio of the notes that follow. 

No matter how you look at this, using just a little doubt and some common sense, it becomes clear that ancient Tibetan tradition COULD NOT be so specific about what frequency is assigned to note “F”, and therefore there must be another understanding of the system described above. 

Here is my insight on this issue: the F2 note is taken as a root chakra bowl because it is pretty rare to find an antique bowl with a lower note than F2, for example – E2 or lower. Also, if the count had started with the higher note, G2 for example, going up seven intervals of perfect fifths would end up with a very high pitch – D6. 

Conclusion: From the practical perspective, choosing the F2 bowl at the bottom of the scale is just more accessible and requires less effort to put a set of seven bowls together. 

With all that being said, the teachers of “authentic” Tibetan sound healing in most cases will offer you quite a different set. This set may include contemporary bowls with the following notes: F2, C3, G2, D2 or D3, A2, E2 or E3 and B2. As you can see, these notes don’t form a circle of perfect fifths. Yes, the names and the string of notes are the same, but there is one huge difference – the octaves are different! 

As a person who educates and deals with the sales of singing bowls, here is what I have to say: singing bowls playing these notes are large and heavy and are therefore pricey and profitable to the seller. This is not all… If you are educated enough and adequately doubtful, you may check the frequency of each bowl and see how far the frequencies are from being the exact note! 

Yes, the bowls may still do the job, but please do not get caught with any unreliable system!

The second most common “authentic” method offers placement of bowls in ascending correspondence to chakras C, D, E, F, G, A, B. Guess what! The octaves are not specified!

WHY?

When I first read about this system, I wondered how it was even possible that the note "C" of the second octave and the same note but three or four octaves higher would also activate the root chakra? I am still wondering why people believe it!

The coloration of the sound, meaning its character, the intensity, the direction and the intention behind it, and not only the pitch, will invoke certain mental, emotional and physical response!

It is much more complex than just working with musical notes to heal all aspects and areas related to the chakras; please understand this! Do not be blindfolded by the salesman-teachers!

In the next segment, you will learn that each sound partial of the singing bowl has more than one frequency! No one talks about it, but that's how you hear the bowl emitting beats. These beats are the result of interference between two slightly different frequencies in each sound partial (such as a fundamental tone and each overtone). Even if one of these frequencies is hitting the exact numerical value of a particular note's frequency, the other is slightly higher or lower. You never get a pitch of the exact note! Also, quite often the overtones of singing bowls dominate in intensity over the fundamental tone. In this case, if you get a bowl with the fundamental note "C" and first overtone "G", which is playing louder than the fundamental, what chakra will you treat?

However, if you tend to believe in the chakra/musical notes system, the questions you should ask yourself are:

• How many chakras does human body really have?
• Everybody talks about chakras. How comprehensive is our knowledge about them?
• What system do you believe in? Sumerian, Egyptian, Ayurveda, Tibetan, Chinese, Martian or modern medicine?
• How many chakras do each of these disciplines describe?
• How many notes do Indian, Tibetan, etc. traditional music scales have?
• What are the frequencies of these notes (if they are fixed numbers)?

However, if you ignore the above questions and want to move on, here are some more challenges:

• What were the original frequencies of notes when Pythagoras came up with the definition of the musical scale?
• Why are we relating chakras to an equal temperament scale and not Just Intonation or Pythagorean?
• Why do we relate chakras to the A4=440Hz scale or A4=432Hz at all?
• Why do we neglect the semitones (half steps)?
• Why does the modern musical scale octave start with "C" (Do) and not, let's say, “A" (La) (in terms of the tone, not the name of the note)?
• Was it always the note C (Do) that began the scale, like it was always the first chakra at the root of the body?
• How did the notes sound before Hertz defined the frequencies?
• What about the overtones of a singing bowl that sometimes dominate in intensity over the fundamental? 
• And a final question: Is the note "F" (Fa) produced by the running engine of a tractor as effective as a guitar string or a singing bowl of the same note in healing the heart chakra?

Well, don't get me wrong. I do not deny the influence of sound on the energy centers, but let's be honest... Is this really about the particular notes? 

When working with sound and energy centers, the practitioner may suggest the client to follow the sound with a specific area of the body. The intention could be set to tap in to a certain aspect of life, associated with the chosen chakra. For better results, check with your client, which sound speaks to him/her when you do this work.

You are a scholar; your instruments are your teachers. Together you create AN AUTHENTIC TEACHING!

A good article about chakras

The real truth about the chakras

“Very often man gives great importance to color and tone, so much so that he forgets that which is behind them, and that leads him to many superstitions, fancies, and imaginations. Many people have fooled the simple ones by telling them what color belonged to their souls, or what note belonged to their lives. Man is so ready to respond to anything that can puzzle him and confuse his mind! He is so willing to be fooled! He enjoys it so much if somebody tells him that his color is yellow or green, or that his note is C, D, or F on the piano. He does not care to find out why. It is like telling somebody: “Wednesday is your day, and Tuesday some other person’s”.

In point of fact, all days are ours, all colors are ours. It is Man who is the master of all manifestation. It is for Man to use all colors and tones. They are at his disposal, for him to use and make the best of. It would be a great pity if we were subjected to one color and tone. There would be no life in this; it would be a form of death. The staircase is made for us to ascend, not for us to continue stepping in one place. Every step is our step, if only we take it.”

  Hazrat Inayat Khan, from “The Mystery of Color and Sound”, a lecture given in England 1918-1919