The seven notes and their frequencies
Every singing bowl has a note. Which note it is decides which chakra it belongs to, which day it is traditionally played on, and where it sits in a healing sequence. From this lesson onward, the note is how we will identify a bowl — not its size, not its colour, not its price.
By the end of this lesson you will know the seven notes and their frequencies in this tradition, understand why the numbers are what they are, and be able to identify your own bowl's note.
The seven notes used in this tradition
| Note | Frequency | Solfège | Chakra |
|---|---|---|---|
| C | 131 Hz | Do · सा | Root |
| D | 148 Hz | Re | Sacral |
| E | 165 Hz | Mi | Solar Plexus |
| F | 175 Hz | Fa | Heart |
| G | 198 Hz | So | Throat |
| A | 220 Hz | La | Third Eye |
| B | 250 Hz | Si | Crown |
Seven notes, seven chakras, running upward from the base of the spine to the top of the head. Course Two takes each one in detail; for now, learn the pairs.
Why does the tradition run low to high?
Vedic healing begins at 131 Hz and finishes at 250 Hz. Low to high, root to crown, earth upward.
That direction is not decorative. The root chakra is described as the foundation — legs, bones, the ground you stand on — and the crown as thought and silence. The frequencies climb in the same order the body is understood to climb.
You will learn in Lesson 1.6 that healing sessions actually run the other way, downward from crown to root. Both are true, and the distinction between them is one of the most important things in this course. For now, just hold the ladder in your head: 131 at the bottom, 250 at the top.
Where do these numbers come from?
Here is something worth knowing, because it will make the whole table easier to remember.
These seven frequencies are close to the notes of the octave just below middle C on a piano. In standard tuning, C3 is 130.8 Hz, F3 is 174.6, A3 is 220. Compare those to the table: 131, 175, 220.
So the tradition is not using a secret scale. It is using ordinary musical notes in a low octave — the register where sound is felt in the body rather than just heard.
A few of the numbers sit slightly above concert pitch. D is 148 rather than 146.8, G is 198 rather than 196, B is 250 rather than 247. Those small differences are what happens when a tradition is passed down through hammered bronze and human ears rather than through a tuning fork. Treat them as the tradition's numbers, not as physics.
On the 528 Hz claims. You will see bowls sold as "528 Hz Love Frequency" or "396 Hz Liberation". Those numbers come from the Solfeggio system, which was assembled in the 1970s and is not part of the Himalayan tradition at all. There is nothing wrong with using them, but they are a modern American system, not an ancient Nepali one, and they do not appear anywhere in this course.
Does bowl size decide the note?
Largely, yes. Bigger bowls are lower, smaller bowls are higher — the same relationship as a bass drum against a snare. Wall thickness and shape adjust it, but size does most of the work.
This has a practical consequence when you buy. A root chakra bowl at 131 Hz will be a substantial object, heavy enough that you will want to set it on a cushion rather than hold it. A crown bowl at 250 Hz can sit in your palm. If someone offers you a small light bowl and calls it a root bowl, be sceptical.
It also means a seven-bowl chakra set is never seven matching bowls. It is a graded series from large to small, and that is how you can tell a real set from seven bowls with coloured stickers.
Practice: find your bowl's note
- Open the live frequency analyser on your phone or laptop.
- Strike your bowl once, cleanly, the way you learned in Lesson 1.2.
- Let it ring and read the note and frequency.
- Do it three times. Bowls read slightly differently depending on where you strike them.
- Write the note down. You will need it for every remaining lesson in this course.
If your bowl reads between two notes, that is completely normal and not a fault. Hand-hammered bowls are rarely tuned to concert pitch — they were made by ear. Round to the nearer note and work with that. A bowl reading 170 Hz is an F bowl for our purposes.
If different strikes give different answers, you are hearing the overtones from Lesson 1.1. Take the lowest and most stable reading as the note.
Common mistakes
- Chasing exact numbers. No hand-made bowl sits precisely on 175.0 Hz, and none needs to. Close is correct.
- Buying by the sticker. Coloured chakra labels are applied by sellers, not by measurement. Measure it yourself.
- Assuming a bigger bowl is a better bowl. Size sets pitch, not quality — Lesson 1.1 covered what quality actually looks like.
- Mixing the Solfeggio numbers into this system. They are a different framework. Pick one.
- Thinking you need all seven. You do not, and Lesson 1.4 explains why.
How do you know you got it right?
You can name your bowl's note and its chakra without looking anything up, and you could explain to a friend why a root bowl is heavy and a crown bowl is small.
If you want to go further, our reference page on chakras, notes and their meanings covers the same ground in table form, and the chakra quiz will suggest which note suits what you are working on at the moment.
Something to sit with
Your bowl has been sounding the same note since before you were born, and will still be sounding it long after. Which note did you end up with — and does it match the part of yourself you thought you needed to work on?