The history of singing bowls explained in 4 minutes by world’s leading expert

Learn the history of antique singing bowls in this talk from The Singing Bowl Museum. Leading singing bowl expert Joseph Feinstein explains how singing bowls originated and how singing bowls evolved over time.

[@VictoriaHill-vv3qb]

Do we know what factors influenced the shift away from folding and towards hammering?

[@singingbowlmuseum]

Not exactly. It may have been simple supply and demand - they needed to make more bowls faster. It may have been a cultural exchange - there were Theravada sects in Nepal that may have brought the technology in from SE Asia. The old bowl makers may have been out-competed by new makers with faster and cheaper methods. This is related to what I say in another video: a lot of the details about the makers are lost.

[@timwrigley102]

Do you have the alloys by type, culture, and date published somewhere?

[@singingbowlmuseum]

Yes I talk about it in my book The Singing Bowl Book and in my articles at singingbowlmuseum.com. The earliest singing bowls are metallurgically distinct from the later bowls. The early bowls are related to bowls from ancient Persia and the later singing bowls are related to metallurgy from SE Asia. The alloy is the same until modern times when brass was introduced. This applies only to the Himalayan singing bowls. I have never tested singing bowls from Japan, Korea or other countries.