- When playing, you want to relax the listener so play soft and gentle to start.
- Watch your listeners breathing patterns and body movements to see how they respond to your playing and play accordingly.
- Give your listener permission to move around and even leave if they feel discomfort. Make it a safe experience.
- Let your listener know that you will tell them it is over by playing a bell, or using your words. At the end, it is nice to let them lay in a few moments of silence first, before waking them up. By telling them at the start that you will tell them when to wake up, their experience will not be compromised by them panicking wondering if it is over and they are supposed to sit up or not. They can just relax until you say it is time to wake up.
- Try to do as little as possible to startle the listener when playing. Playing one or two bowls together for several minutes can be very soothing. Long periods of the similar/same sounds allow the nervous system to really relax.Transitions are very important, moving slowly and softly from one experience to the next. When you decide to move to the next note, do it very softly so as not to startle the listener.
- If you are tapping the bowls, repetition is very nice as it is predictable and less likely to startle the nervous system.
- You may with to offer a drone on one note for a long period of time while playing other notes with the other hand.
- There is so much more to learn about giving sound sessions, but I think these are the key factors to help you begin your journey. If you are interested in training I have several different courses that I can recommend. They should be posted on the training page our website soon.
