From time immemorial, sound and music have been used to heal the mind and body.
Sound healing has taken several forms, evolving over the centuries from Tibetan bells and metal bowls to today’s precision-tuned quartz crystal healing bowls and tuning forks.
How Tuning Forks Work
Jenifer McKenzie, a practitioner and teacher of Ascension Attunement in Dallas, Texas, uses tuning forks to heal the mind and body. McKenzie is also a classically trained flutist, performing with the Dallas Opera Orchestra.
Vibration is the basis of all creation and existence, she says. “Scientists tell us today that even the carpet or a rock or any material is simply made up of molecules in motion. We have many ways to test and measure things now that we didn’t used to have – we just used to know that music affected us and sound affected us. Now we know it’s all vibration,” she says.
Most sound healing techniques use audible sounds to promote relaxation and help energy centers vibrate in a more helpful way. Using tuning forks concentrates the source of vibration, McKenzie says.
Tuning forks operate through the physics of dominant and sympathetic resonance, vibrating to each chakra’s tone. This stimulates the chakra, shaking up and cleaning off any static energy that has collected there. Ascension Attunement uses a specific set of tuning forks, each chosen to resonate with a chakra or area of the body.
While beautiful and potent, Tibetan and crystal bowls are often expensive, fragile and difficult to transport. And while each uses vibration, sound waves from bowls washes over the body whereas tuning forks are precise, concentrated sound, McKenzie explains. And they’re easy to pack up and take with you.
More About Sound Vibration
Another sound healing practitioner using tuning forks and hands-on healing to promote balance and vitality is Colette Michelini of Sound Attunement in West Palm Beach, Florida. Michelini is a certified Sound Energy Dynamics practitioner.
“The vibrations of the tuning forks as they are passed over and around the body become carrier waves— specific sounds—that attract accumulated, disruptive energy patterns stored in the body,” she says.
“After collecting these non-resonant, disruptive vibrations, the tuning forks are used to pull the old energy away from the body, where it is released and depolarized by stopping the vibration of the fork.”
So can anyone use tuning forks as a sound healing modality? Yes, just like anyone can be a Reiki Master, yoga teacher or aromatherapist—with the right training and practice.
And in any healing practice, there is often a deep spiritual philosophy and outlook on life that must be understood and assimilated into daily life before learning is complete.
Quotes on the Healing Power of Sound
"The power of drumming is something so primal that it is hard to put into words. When I am drumming and toning, I feel every cell in my body vibrating in ecstasy…I am filled with light and pure life energy.”
– Rose Husted of Voices drumming studio, Rochester, N.Y.
“Be aware of sounds in your environment and how sounds in nature help you heal. The laws of physics governing sound and vibration are always operating whether we know it or not. Vibrations can enhance our ability to heal, feel peaceful. Sounds can also make us feel very irritated, disjunct, and out of sorts.”
– Jenifer McKenzie, Ascension Attunement pracitioner and professional musician.
For more information on sound healing, visit these web sites:
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