After 20 years of leading gong sound baths professionally, I can tell you that no other instrument does what a gong does, for the people in the room or for the person playing it. But getting to that conclusion required unlearning some things first.
The Moment a Belief Collapsed
I’ll never forget the moment a physicist friend said to me, “Nothing can be tuned to the planets.”
In an instant, a belief I had repeated for the first five years of my sound bath career collapsed. I had been told that “planet gongs” are tuned to the planets so many times, by so many people, with such authority, that I never questioned it. Even though I had a science degree.
But there is no audible sound in space. And even if planets produced sound, it wouldn’t be a single frequency. Nothing in nature works that way.
I felt embarrassed for believing it. Then empowered.
That moment mattered because misinformation does two things. It undermines practitioners’ confidence. And it shapes how participants experience sound baths. When people are told something mystical but untrue about an instrument, it changes their relationship to the experience. And when that claim gets debunked, which it will eventually, it undermines trust in the whole practice.
When my partner, Robert, and I were developing what would become the first Soundbath Practitioner Training, we delved into the physics of sound, music theory, and the instruments commonly used in gong sound baths. What we found was that many widely taught claims about tuning, frequency, and instruments don’t hold up to basic physics, music theory, or real-world testing. Many of the myths were developed to increase instrument sales for people selling instruments.
That discovery changed everything about how we built our method.
What Gongs Actually Do
Once you set the myths aside, what remains is genuinely remarkable. The real qualities of gongs, separated from rumors and sales pitches, are what set them apart in sound baths.
Gongs produce an exceptionally wide range of frequencies simultaneously, a breadth that crystal singing bowls, or most other sound bath instruments, simply don’t reach. That range engages the body in a way that most instruments do not. It isn’t just something you hear. You feel it.
I’ve watched thousands of people leave gong baths looking transformed, as if they had just returned from somewhere else. That look is unmistakable, and you don’t see it as consistently after crystal bowl-only sound baths. Participants process more deeply, relax more fully, and leave with a stronger sense that something actually happened.
Crystal singing bowls are beautiful instruments that add real value to a sound bath. But on their own, they tend to keep participants in a more aware, surface-level state. Gongs take people further in. The difference is consistent enough, across thousands of sessions, that I no longer think of it as a preference. It’s an observation.
What Gongs Do for the Player
The benefits of a gong sound bath don’t stop with the people lying on the floor.
Each time I play, I feel clearer and more connected. Insights arrive. I work through problems I haven’t been able to approach any other way. For the first eight years of playing, I kept a journal nearby and wrote in it after every session, so I wouldn’t lose what came through.
Even after more than two decades, I still feel it. Every time I play, I come out the other side feeling better, even on days when I already feel good.
Students who start playing gongs regularly report a similar experience. They describe feeling more creative, thinking more clearly, and having better focus. One student said it felt like her mind got cleaned out every time she played. Another said he started looking forward to practice sessions the way other people look forward to reading a good book, as something that reliably resets him.
The short version: it works on you.
The same qualities that make a gong-based sound bath effective for participants, the breadth of sound, the physical resonance, and the way it quiets mental noise, apply equally to the person holding the mallet. Sound bath benefits: playing vs receiving.
A Note on the Term “Gong Bath”
Many practitioners use “gong bath” to describe what happens in these sessions, and the term fits. You are bathed in gong sounds. However, in the US, Gong Bath® has been a registered trademark owned by Richard Rudis (now his estate) since 2008. In other countries, the term is used freely, but in the US, only those with the estate’s direct approval may use it commercially. This is part of why “sound bath” became the dominant generic term back in the early 2000’s. No one trademarked it early on, so it remained open for everyone to use.
Why Our Course Includes a Gong
My first experience with a gong sound bath was at the end of a yoga class. The teacher asked us to lie down and close our eyes. When the sound filled the room, I felt my body relax completely. I forgot about the people nearby, the hard floor, and my usual stress. It was as if I was floating.
After that, I went back to yoga as often as possible, not just for the yoga, but for the gong. I was disappointed whenever the teacher left it out.
Years later, when I walked into a tuning fork workshop and saw nine gongs set up around the room, I knew immediately that I wanted to play them for others, so they could feel what I had felt.
That impulse, combined with what I later learned about the science and the misinformation in this field, is what eventually became the Group Soundbath Player™ Course. Not a course built around mysticism or instrument sales pitches, but one built around what actually works in real sound baths with gongs, with real people, over thousands of events.
I went back to that yoga class over and over for one reason. Once you feel what a gong does, you want more of it. Twenty years later, that hasn’t changed.
Learn more about Group Soundbath Player™ Certification Course
Related reading: Sound Bath Instruments: What You Need to Start Playing | Do You Need a Sound Bath Certification to Play Professionally? | How Do I Become a Sound Bath Practitioner?
