One of the things that sets the quality of the singing bowls you’ll see on this website apart is multi-tonality. Premium quality singing bowls have two, three or even four main tones as well as other subtle sounds. You can bring out these different sounds by using different ringing instruments and techniques. Choice of mallets and sticks are an important part of the sound you hear.
Playing Surfaces
Some tips on how to hold your singing bowls so they sound the bestFirst lets look at the physics behind the sound of a singing bowl. When you strike the singing bowl you set the metal into motion. The continual sound you hear is a result of momentum, motion remaining in motion. What slows down that motion and extinguishes the sound is friction. Friction comes from the singing bowl itself and we can’t do anything about that but it also comes from anything that touches the singing bowl.
With an active singing bowl you can see the rim dance because that is where the sound radiates from. Pressing on the rim will stop the sound cold, pressing lower on a bowl will dampen but not extinguish the sound. The part of the singing bowl furthest from the rim, the bottom, has the least effect. Should we wish to get the most sound out of our singing bowls we want contact with the smallest amount of surface area the farthest from the rim.
When I play a singing bowl in my hand I perch it on my finger tips. This gives me good control of the singing bowl with the least amount of contact. This is especially important with smaller singing bowls, you can get away with holding a heavy big bowl in the palm of your hand. When I test singing bowls I always play them in my hand so I can bring it close to me to hear and can also feel the vibration for cracks. When I play singing bowls I prefer to have them down somewhere because the sound tends to outlast my patience for holding them. For multiple singing bowls a playing surface is a must.
Plush Carpets
Over the years my preferred surface for playing singing bowls has been carpets, especially thin dense ones like orientals. They are thick enough to insulate and provide good friction to keep bowls in place while minimizing the dampening of sound. You can buy some very pretty cushions to cradle your singing bowls. My experience with cushions is that no matter how you do them they touch not only the bottom but the sides of bowls and dampen sound prematurely.
In addition to the ancient art of metallurgy the ancient art of carpet weaving is native to the Himalayas. I had the idea that ancient singing bowls deserve an ancient ringing surface so I acquired an 85 year old carpet that had been damaged and had it cut into pieces and edged. The edging was quite a task, it ended up taking weeks to finish since even the smallest carpet square required hundreds of hand stitches. The finished product makes a fine and culturally appropriate surface for a singing bowl. Buy carpet squares
Resonance – The Sum is Greater Than the Parts
Sometimes singing bowls played together with mallets and even ringing sticks will produce tones that each individual singing bowl does not have. I sell a few sets of singing bowls that have these special qualities. One of the great pleasures of having a singing bowl collection is to play with your pieces and see which ones really go together. Big premium quality jambati singing bowls are the easiest ones to experience resonance with. Singing bowls that are close in tone will sometimes set one another off (ring one and silence it and you can hear the other faintly ringing).
Not Just For Special Occasions
Often the more I play a singing bowl the more it will grow on me; I begin 
to resonate with the sound. Some of the singing bowls that I have been ringing regularly over the past quarter century are absolutely inside me. You’ll buy singing bowls based on the attractiveness of the sound clip and maybe their looks but I’ll bet you enjoy your singing bowls even more as you play them over time and come into deeper resonance with them.
Your perception of an individual singing bowl is likely to change based on your mental state, mood or even energy level. What is spectacular one day issometimes less so the next. If you are fortunate enough to have a few different singing bowls and ring them every day a useful practice is to see whether you can perceive difference and correlate them to what is going on inside of you
As you can tell from the above I advocate keeping your singing bowls out and ringing them regularly. You don’t need a “reason” to ring a singing bowl. One theory about the singing bowls in ancient times is they were used for entertainment. In this day and age entertainment is good and multiple benefits better. I believe the sounds from these objects are truly profound and beneath the surface of enjoyment they can confer many important benefits.
