If you’re feeling out of sorts, a gong session could help restore those good vibrations, as David Kelly explains

HANDS up if you know the connection between Brenda Lee’s 1962 hit Here Comes That Feeling, The Beach Boys’ 1966 hit Good Vibrations, Blondie’s 1980 No.1 Atomic, and the 2016 album 2hours30 minutes by North-East musician and songwriter Andrew Yeadon.

The answer is (roll of drums…) Albert Einstein, the world’s most celebrated physicist. Einstein’s chart-topper explained the reality at the heart of sound and in this instance about therapy and well-being. His hit? Everything in life is vibration.

Andrew learned that when he dropped into the back end of a gongs “sound bath” at The Hub in Barnard Castle, County Durham. This is a bath without water, cossies, towels. It is immersion in sound.

The sounds of the gongs were being delivered by Jane Ford Farrand, a sound therapist from nearby Staindrop.

The experience changed Andrew: it retrieved and revived his spirit, his understanding of himself. He felt something physical inside him had actually moved. He arrived home in Barnard Castle at 11pm and, after years of music and song muted within him, told his wife: “I am going to write a new album.” At 1.30am, it was complete. 2hours30minutes.

If you have ever felt a physical response to music, something inside you actually vibrating, then that’s Einstein’s domain. The atomic essence of you is feeling the vibrations. He determined that all atoms in this world and the universe are in a constant state of motion, and that depending on the speed of these atoms, things appear as a solid, a liquid or a gas.

For example, your kitchen table is made up of countless billions of constantly moving atoms in vibration with each other. So is the cereal, the toast. All in “tune” with themselves. But sometimes, in people, things are out of tune.

Jane says sound can and does “resonate” with the human body, and that a sound bath experience can help people to understand what ails them, as well as helping to heal them.

JANE’S GONGS

It is important to distinguish between the vibrational effects of a 'sound' experience and our aesthetic appreciation of the sounds heard. The sound wave from a gong, for example, will penetrate the entire body, not just the ears, and cause a reaction in the molecular construction of the individual. This, in turn, can affect some or all of our emotional, physical, mental and spiritual levels of being, thus bringing about powerful healing - a 're-wiring' we might call it.

Looked at in this way, virtually every condition can be helped through sound. The tools of the sound therapist include tuning forks, voice, drums, Tibetan and crystal bowls, as well as gongs. A skilled therapist will know which are best suited for the condition to be treated.

A sound bath can be for an individual or a group and involves lying (preferably) or sitting while the therapist delivers a series of frequencies from different instruments. You are 'bathed' in the sounds.

A frequent complaint, sciatic pain, is readily treatable using a particular tuning fork placed directly onto the sciatic nerve. This often brings about immediate and lasting relief.

I recently treated a lady suffering acute shoulder and back pain for which doctors had been unable to find a cause or a cure. I placed a series of Himalayan singing bowls on her back and she felt the pain move down her body until she was able to release it completely.

The pain was, in fact, stored emotional trauma which, once she had spoken about it, with the aid of the vibrations she was able to let go.

  • Jane offers group and individual sessions from her home in Staindrop. Regular sound baths take place at Pioneering Care Partnership (PCP), Newton Aycliffe, and Bellerby Memorial Hall, near Leyburn. Jane also gives regular sound baths at a variety of venues across the North-East, including Darlington, Barnard Castle, Bellerby, Newton Aycliffe and Durham. Jane is also available for talks/demonstrations to groups of all kinds. T: 01833-660028; W: soundaffects.co.uk.

ANDREW’S SONGS

At the time my work had me running at very high-energy and stress levels, and I had to be incredibly focused. Later reflections told me I couldn't have fulfilled the task had I been in the free-thinking creative state I consider is my natural state of being. I'd lost interest in music.

I went in the gong bath simply to relax, but noticed a quite sudden shift of awareness from the side of my body to the centre, which seemed to be accompanied by a noticeable shift in the physical sensation in those places. On leaving the session, I felt as though I had reconnected with the real me. I felt human again and had this huge creative urge. It seemed as though a dam, holding something back, had burst.

This made me creative again. This impulse to write a new album – my sixth - was launched from that gong bath experience. Other people have had similar experiences after the sessions.

When we came to record 2hours30minutes, I wanted the same spontaneity I had in the writing. The main body of the album was recorded in five hours with a band with no previous experience of the music who had never played together before.

  • 2hours30minutes is downloadable from all major music outlets including Amazon and iTunes, streamable on Spotify and Napster. Find out more and watch the making of 2hours30minutes video at andrewyeadon.co.uk. 100 limited edition hand printed copies available from mail@andrewyeadon.co.uk, £15 each.