The Gong : Multi Purpose Musical Instrument (Part 1)

The Gong is one of man's most powerful and oldest transformational and therapeutic instruments. It has been used for ritual, ceremony, prayer, and meditation since the Bronze Age. While its sound is relaxing and calming, centering and energizing, transforming and healing, gongs have been used in yoga, sound meditation, and vibrational therapy from the distant past to present.

When metal is being "excited", electrons become highly charged electromagnetically and form a field of Plasmon (according to the late physicist David Bohm). The plasma field is being created off the gong and the listener becomes part of the field. Metal is the only material known where the electrons leave their atoms and join other atoms. When the activity of the gong ends, the electrons go back to their original atoms. Once the gong comes to rest, the Plasmons and the energy field collapses. When the gong is revved up again the Plasmon field expands and intensifies. The participants are being electromagnetically charged in a positive, benevolent and holistic fashion. Many walk away with a natural buzz that is some case has lasted for a week.

Gongs are useful in resolving emotional and physical dissonance. Magic happens when there is no separation between the gong, the player and the listener. Playing and listening to gongs is about spiritual, physical and emotional resolution – opening of doors and windows to the Universe, moving around energies, Universal energies – to enter a spiritual dimension. The Gong is a psycho-acoustic gateway to heightened states of awareness and consciousness. It is an ideal tool for stress reduction, stimulation of the glandular system, and to break up emotional blockages. When skillfully played, gongs stimulate and resonate all cells in the human body simultaneously and recalibrate the parasympathetic nervous system (heavy arms and legs as well as a regulated heart rate during a gong meditation are a sign of the re-calibration).

The Gong generates powerful multi-dimensional ripples of sound that grow into waves and bathe your entire body in streams of sound. These have been described as otherworldly, rhythmic, generating a sense of being on vacation, unfathomable, purifying, magical, sweet – like rich, rich chocolate cake, profound, out of body, celestial and harmonic…just to name a few.

From a sacred geometry viewpoint, a circle – the gong's basic shape – represents a beginning that has no end. It is ever-expanding potential and represents our connection with the holographic nature of oneness. Throughout many traditions and cultures, it also stands as symbol for heaven, totality, perfection, unity, eternity, completeness and for inclusive harmony.
Don Conreaux, who is one of the pioneers in the use of the gong for stress reduction, healing and personal transformation best describes "The Magical Inner Space of a Gong Tone":

"The gong is known as an instrument of transformational power. It is a tool by which we are engulfed in total sound, and through our intuition, we are brought back to optimum health and balance. The gong is a supportive tool for the manifestation of our harmonious physical, mental, and emotional being. The OM tone of a gong creates total silence within. The sustained tone of a gong creates timelessness. The building of its tone combinations create a sense of levitation or lightness. It is the unique quality of a gong's resonance that integrates diverse elements into a power of synergy, or functional harmony.

We also call the tone produced by the gong a "feeling tone," because we feel it in our body, as well as hear it.