The Way of the Gong™

I recently received an email from a composer who is working on a large scale piece with various Gongs in it. He asked me about how you notate Gongs. I started working on a blog to address this issue when I discovered that I had already written something back in May 2014 for my Percussion Deconstruction™ blog on that exact subject. So rather than write something new, here is the link to Music Notation For Gongs . I feel it's still relevant and is a great resource of information. ~ MB Chop Wood / Carry Water / Play Gongs™

There is no magic to what I do. I play sounds. That's it. But I've spent most of my life learning how to make those sounds, and I've also learned when  to make them. And I think that is very important.  Anyone can make a sound, but, and this is important, not everyone can make the right sound at the right time . I'm not saying that I'm the world's expert on this, but I've put in my time, and I keep working at it. Sometimes things don't turn out right, or as I expected, but I'm able to carry on and make a better sound, a better choice as I move forward. I just try to make sounds that I find interesting and hope that others find them interesting too. - Michael Bettine I've also really distanced myself from the whole sound therapy community, because so much of it is based on magical thinking—things like 432Hz, Planet Gongs, 7-metal alloys, assigned notes for each Chakra, etc. While I believe in magic, I don't do magical thinking when ...

I'm constantly surprised, when listening to sound healers , how much of the sounds they make I perceive as noise , or at least as non-musical sound . It's really a shame, because I think they are missing the opportunity to be so much more, and to give their listeners so much more. Understand that my viewpoint comes from being a trained musician with over 50 years of experience. I'm all for healing/therapy/meditation, or however you want to describe what you do with your gongs/bowls/bells, but much of what I hear is lacking 3 important aspects of music—rhythm, harmony, and melody. Let's take a look at those: 1) Rhythm . To me, this seems so basic, but as a percussionist, it's so ingrained in my body/mind/soul, that I can't help but always feel a sense of rhythm in what I do. So perhaps it's from this perspective that I'm so surprised by the lack of any sort of discernible rhythm from many of the people I listen to. To me, rhythm is important because ...