Foundation — the bowl, the body, and your first session
Eight free lessons for anyone starting from nothing. By the end you will understand what you are holding, how to make it sound properly, which note belongs to which part of the body, and how to sit down and give yourself a complete session.
Start here even if you have owned a bowl for years. The most common problem we see is a bowl that will not sing on the rim, and the cause is almost always the hand rather than the bowl.
Ready to begin? The first lesson takes about eight minutes.
What will you be able to do at the end?
- Hold and strike a bowl so it rings cleanly, and run the rim without the tone breaking up
- Identify your bowl's note and know which chakra it belongs to
- Explain why root-to-crown and crown-to-root do completely different things
- Open and close a practice the way it is done in Nepal
- Complete a ten-minute self-session from memory
The eight lessons
| # | Lesson | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | What a Himalayan Singing Bowl Is | The seven-metal tradition, hand-hammered against machine-made, why an old bowl sounds different. |
| 1.2 | Holding, Striking and Rimming | Palm position, mallet grip, the strike, the rim rotation — and the four reasons a bowl stops singing. |
| 1.3 | The Seven Notes and Their Frequencies | C at 131 Hz through to B at 250 Hz, and why this tradition works upward from low to high. |
| 1.4 | The Universal Bowls | A and B can be played for anyone and any chakra. Why that matters if you own only one bowl. |
| 1.5 | The Seven Chakras — An Overview | Location, colour, note and mantra for all seven, in one table you can work from. |
| 1.6 | The Two Directions | Root to crown is therapy. Crown to root is healing. The rule that shapes every session. |
| 1.7 | Preparing to Practise | Incense, prayer, tingsha and the colours worn in this tradition — and what each is actually for. |
| 1.8 | Your First Self-Session | Ten minutes, one bowl, crown to root. Everything from the previous seven lessons put together. |
What do you need to start?
One bowl. That is genuinely all. Every lesson here works with a single bowl, and Lesson 1.8 is designed around owning exactly one.
Haven't bought one yet? Wait until you have read Lessons 1.3 and 1.4 — they explain why the note matters more than the size, and why an A or B bowl is the most forgiving first purchase. Our guide to choosing a singing bowl covers the practical side, and bowl types explains the shapes you will see named in listings. When you are ready, the handmade bowls are where most people begin.
Already own one but don't know its note? The live frequency analyser will tell you in a few seconds. Do this before Lesson 1.5 and the chakra table will mean a great deal more.
Tingsha and incense appear in Lesson 1.7. Neither is required to finish the course, but both are part of how a session is opened in Nepal, and the lesson explains why that opening does real work rather than being ceremony for its own sake. If you want them, we stock tingsha and incense.
How does the certificate work?
The course ends with ten questions, four options each, drawn from across the eight lessons. Answer all ten correctly and the page reveals a completion code.
Send that code through our contact page with the name you would like on the certificate, and we will email your Certificate of Completion — Foundation in Himalayan Singing Bowl Practice.
You cannot fail. A wrong answer tells you which lesson to look at again and lets you try once more, as many times as you need. The questions exist to make sure the material landed, not to catch you out.
Course One is self-practice only — everything here concerns your own body and your own bowl. Working on other people begins in Course Three, which covers intake, contraindications and the limits of what a sound practitioner should take on.
How long does it take?
About two hours to read all eight lessons, and roughly a week to practise them properly. There is no schedule and nothing expires — work through it at whatever pace suits you.
If you would rather build the habit before studying the theory, our 30-day routine calendar is a gentler way in, and these lessons will make more sense afterwards.
What comes next?
Course Two: The Seven Chakras takes each chakra in turn and goes considerably deeper — mudras, ruling planets, elements, body correspondences and affirmations. It is where the tradition really opens up, and it is the course most people find themselves returning to.
Eight lessons, one bowl, no cost. Everything you need to give yourself a proper session.