How to play on singing bowls
1. Place the bowl on the palm of your hand, it's up to you which one. Bend your palm slightly so that the bowl does not move when playing with the pressure of the mallet. Do not hold the bowl by the side, because you would block the vibrations and thus the sound of the Tibetan singing bowl.
2. Grasp the mallet in your hand as if you were holding a large pencil or pen. With the mallet, slowly start to circle around the perimeter of the bowl. For a balanced sound, it is important to maintain the same pressure on the rim of the bowl and also the same speed. You can experiment with both pressure and speed. With smaller bowls, it sometimes helps to first play the bowl with a stroke and only then start to circle around the perimeter. With large bowls, sometimes you don't even need to circle the entire circumference, about a third of the circumference and moving back and forth is enough. After a few minutes you should be able to do it without any problems.
3. Another method is to simply hit the edge of the bowl with a mallet, like a gong. The result will depend on how hard you hit, whether it will be a mallet covered with leather or other soft material or whether the surface of the striking object will be hard. When struck with a hard object, for example a wooden part of a mallet or even metal object, the bowl will play especially high notes. When struck with the soft part of the mallet, these will be mid-range frequencies. For large bowls, special sticks with a rubber core and a felt surface are also used to achieve the lowest possible frequencies and the highest meditative effect.
How to create a fountain in a singing bowl?
You can create a fountain in a bowl as in step no. 2 - that is, you fill the bowl with water, (halfway is sufficient) and start circling, ideally with a mallet covered with leather. However, creating a fountain can sometimes be a problem, especially with smaller bowls up to about 15 cm in diameter, where strong enough vibrations are not created to create a fountain. Even with larger bowls, it may be necessary to push the edges of the bowl with a little more force.
Here you can find an illustrative video: