Learn about singing bowls free

The bowl is made to sing by placing the suede or wood side of the puja stick right on the rim of the bowl and moving round the rim in cylindrical  motion. The vibrations you will feel with your fingers holding the puja stick and in the palm of your other hand if you are holding the bowl rather than placing on the table or floor.  When on these surfaces you need a rug or felt cushion, a cushion with buckwheat or cotton. Or a donut type ring. We use a thin perforated type rubber mat also to keep from slipping. 

The bowl produces an ethereal Sonic type sound.

It is this sound that makes the bowl unique and fascinating to everyone including musicians.

The singing bowl is an idiophone, (instrument that produces sound primarily by its physical vibrations.

 

Are Tibetan singing bowls considered percussion instruments? 

Other examples of an idiophone type instrument would be brass cynbals, bells, clappers, rattles. 
Membranophones are instruments that create sound from a stretched membrane ; drums 
 The size, shape and composition of the bowl determine the characteristics of the sound. 

the complexity of the sound is determined by many different frequencies of vibration simultaneously . 

If only one frequency is allowed to vibrate the sound is often referred to as a pure tone;

if multiple frequencies are present the sound is said to be complex. When the bowl is made to sing, the sound is almost a pure tone that is modulated so that it slowly rises and falls in intensity as the puja stick moves around the bowl.

 

Himalayan singing bowl