Sound bathing with the RAV Vast. How to choose the RAV Vast for your home/studio meditation and sound healing

Choosing a good instrument for sound bath meditation is crucial. You’ve probably heard about using the instruments like singing bowls, tuning forks, handpan and various pan drums, chimes, gongs, and even didgeridoo for sound healing, sound therapy and sound bathing. Sound healers and practitioners are always searching for an instrument that has a better sound, a deeper relaxing and meditative effect and the one that is easily manageable. And the RAV Vast suits these aims perfectly becoming an ultimate instrument for sound bathing.

How to start doing sound baths with the RAV Vast? Whether you are already a master of sound bathing or you would like to try and become a sound therapy guru, this guide will help you to get to the bottom.

The magic of sound bathing

Sound bathing is a powerful technique that people use to reach deep relaxation. Why do we need it? Can’t we relax by just napping in our bed? Even during the night time while we are asleep our bodies often don’t get fully relaxed. This tension is haunting us day by day resulting to transform into muscle and joint pain and sometimes even to the low function of the organs. Thus, sound bathing can be used as a part of therapy as a remedy that releases tension and makes all our systems work properly.

The term “sound bath” refers to the feel of floating waves produced by an instrument that “wash” the body and mind and take it into meditative state. What are the entry requirements for the instrument to be chosen for sound bathing? First and foremost, it should be able to create a strong yet gentle audiowave that will be able to “wash”. It means the instrument should have a notable resonance and a big vibrational power. And that’s what the RAV Vast tongue drum can provide easily.

How does the RAV Vast affects a person through sound bathing?

How does the RAV Vast work for sound bathing? It’s all about the proper vibrations. Being a professional sound healer (or wishing to become one someday) you know that when choosing the best instrument for sound bath meditation, you need to find one with proper healing effect and soothing frequencies.

The RAV Vast provides the healing effect by producing some specific audio tones and its powerful vibrations have a frequency that is just what it’s needed for sound bathing. The voice of the drum is clean and sonorous, loud enough to fill in the space and still gentle. The sound of each note is enriched with up to 7 harmonious overtones. But one of the greatest advantages of the RAV Vast for sound bathing is its sustain. The sound of a single note can last up to 25 seconds. It means as a healer you can follow the needed rhythm of ever-lasting RAV Vast sound and pauses between. Thus, the healer can make discrete taps of the tongues dividing them with the essential moments of silence. The frequency of these taps takes the person into meditative state.

While gong and singing bowl can only produce a single note, the RAV Vast provides a whole variety of sounds. Instead of drawing all the screws with the same bolt driver, you have a greater toolkit – a set of drivers of different sizes and shapes to fix any problem. You have an ability to do a kind of acupuncture massage on a cellular level, affecting some certain points. You can play the lower notes only to work with lower chakras and slowly move up with to the higher ones with higher pitches. As the RAV Vast is a full-fledged professional instrument, you can not only work with discrete notes (like in case of singing bowl) but to create a whole melody. And you don’t even need to have any musical background for that. The RAV Vast works perfectly for intuitive playing being able to create wonderful melodies in inexperienced hands.

Whether you are a sound healer, yoga teacher, massage therapist, reiki and spiritual practitioner, qigong healer, herbalist, traditional medicine healer, chiropractic, i.e. anyone who works with energies, the sound bathing with the RAV Vast can be a new interesting experience for you that will not require a lot to try. Neither you need to have any specific (or any at all) drumming background nor have a previous meditation experience for doing soundbathing with the RAV Vast.

“After 4 years of work as a sound healer & meditation teacher with over 1000 clients from over 25 countries worldwide (more info @growthlabsglobal.com), I can easily say, the RAV Vast tonguepan, is one of the most powerful tools in my "toolkit" to induce that deeply relaxed, meditative state in both the player and the listener. When we skillfully & artfully allow the RAV to do what it’s designed to do, it sings, and that one-of-a-kind sound is what entrances the listener.”

Justin Ezor, a percissionist and master of the RAV Vast meditation

How to choose the RAV Vast for sound bathing?

Each of the RAV drum has a harmonious and lush sound but not all of them provide the same effect. So how to choose the RAV instrument for sound bathing?

We advise to opt for the scales with a soft timbre (so that the listeners don’t get bored after more than two hours of listening during the session) and those that are easier to deal with (noted as beginner or medium level scales in our catalog).

The perfect choice the D Celtic Minor (soft, tranquil and high-pitched), the E Low Pygmy (low-pitched, mysterious, and has extremely strong vibrations), G Pygmy (provides an opportunity to choose between dramatic and joyful mood, great for tuning both lower and upper chakras), B Celtic Minor (romantic and slightly melancholic and very watery).  All these drums have a very harmonious note layout. That means you can only create harmonious combinations with any notes.

There are certain scales that we do not recommend for using for sound healing due to their very specific timbre (like the G Humayun, F# In Sen) or the complexity of playing (B Onoleo, B Golden Arcadia). To make sure you’ve chosen the best scale for you, use the RAV Virtual Player.

More than a drum

If you have a professional sound healing studio, it will be great to add the RAV Vast to your toolkit. The RAV can easily be combined with other sound healing instruments especially with singing bowls, tuning forks and didgeridoo. If you feel confident enough, you can involve playing two RAV Vasts at a time (for example the E Low Pygmy and D Celtic Minor).

Bonus: Guide for a Sound bath session with the RAV Vast

If you never played the RAV Vast before, save your time for getting known with the instrument. We recommend learning a few patterns before the sessions. You can play and record to find the best music combinations and then recreate them during the meditation and sound healing.

Offer a cup of Holy Basil tea at the beginning to slow down the nervous system and let them get ready for the session.

Ask the participants to settle down comfortably on the mat. Guide them to relax their bodies part by part. While the participants remain lying down, start playing the RAV Vast. You don’t need to fill in much space with the sound. Let the sound vibrations of a single note or chord reveal their power, make a pause and then move to another one and let the musical instrument lead you.

Be responsive to the moment, be tuned into the energy of the moment. Sound bath session is not a stage performance. The aim is not to show off your playing skills but to take people into a deeper state of awareness and healing relaxation with the musical frequencies. Let the participants follow to the journey of meditation, consciousness and awareness with the music of the RAV Vast drum.

Leave longer spaces between the notes, while the session is finishing. At this point you can involve a single note only. Guide the participants to do a short guided stretch to fill the bodies with proactive energy. You’ll see people leaving the session relaxed and refreshed!