Local Focus: Gong baths and rain sticks are small part of sound therapy

Sound Therapy is not about listening to sounds.

It's about feeling sound.

That's according to 75-year-old Hamilton woman Maureen McKain, who claims the sounds she makes with her indigenous instruments help rid people of stress and "bliss out".

"People call it a gong bath, but there's no water involved," McKain said. "People lay down in a yoga studio with a blanket and a cushion and all the sounds wash through the body and they feel the vibrations.

While the local GP might not refer patients to sound therapy, the use of mindfulness and meditation as a cure for stress is widely recognised and, according to Buddhist tradition, sound is an intrinsic form of healing.

Using indigenous instruments that she's collected from around the world, McKain uses sequences of sounds to help relax her clients at her "sound healing concerts".

"When I start playing my music it just all happens automatically," she said. "I'm not a musician, I'm a sound healer, but I bring out all the symphonies and harmonics and it washes through people's bodies."

Among her instruments are a symphonic gong, Himalayan healing bowls, Tibetan singing bowls, pipe dreams, sansulas, rain sticks, drums and a swar sangam.

"In this day and age, the world is not in good state. People suffer from stress, they're ill from stress. But the benefits of sound healing concerts are that people just let go, bliss out and allow sounds to flow through them and feel so good after."

She also teaches yoga and meditation, and McKain says it helps keep her young.

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