The Way of the Gong™

“There is no such thing as empty space or an empty time. There is always something to see, something to hear. In fact, try as we may to make a silence, we can not.”  John Cage, from his book, Silence: Lectures & Writings Silence . Much has been said about it, but little of it has really been understood. John Cage knew, and he took advantage of it, using it as a compositional tool. In fact, his most talked about composition, 4'33", is all about silence—or rather, the lack of silence (for further insight on Cage and 4'33", read Kyle Gann's wonderful book, No Such Thing As Silence ). For those working with Gongs/Bowls/Bells in a meditative or therapeutic setting, I think it's important to realize that there is no silence . Try as we might, outside sounds always creep into our silent sessions. Silence is an illusion… Here are a few examples: one place I regularly do sessions is located next to some railroad tracks. There is almost always a train or ...

There tends to be a lot of cosmic woo-woo around the Gongs and Bowls. That may be fine for others, but I just don't get into that. In fact, I find it more distracting than anything. Maybe it's my background as a trained percussionist that makes me more pragmatic. This is not to say that I don't have a spiritual side. In fact, I'm very spiritual, and have spent the past 40 years studying different aspects of spirituality, Shamanism, Ancient Mystery Schools, and other esoteric aspects. But I also balance that out with with healthy doses of science and practical exploration through empirical evidence. Michael Paiste Volcano Gong - A portal to other realms Another part of this is that when you come to my sessions, I don't want to impose my own thoughts and beliefs upon you. We all have our own highly personal beliefs. What I am, is a facilitator, opening a portal to the energy and vibrations of the Gongs/Bowls/Bells. I am here to open the way to yourself. It i...

YouTube, it's become ubiquitous to modern life. You can find almost anything thing there. When I need to fix something around the house, or with my car, I know that I can find a video there showing me how to do it. So YouTube is a great resource.  There are also a lot of great music videos, including instructional ones. But there's also a danger there. A danger because many of the instructional ones are either so poorly done, by someone with little actual knowledge of what they are doing; or, the information that is being presented is completely wrong! This especially goes for Gong and Singing Bowl videos. I've been posting both performance & instructional videos for over 7 years now (60 videos).  I hope that you would see a progression of improvement in both the quality, and the content.  And in that time I've seen hundreds, if not thousands, of others posted. Now I'm not saying that I'm an expert in everything, or that what I present is the only way to d...